Boston Dynamics’ Spot robots have been used in many creative ways, from surveying a Ford plant in Michigan to herding sheep in New Zealand. Earlier this year, the tech company announced Spot was chipping in to help coronavirus patients — now, we’re seeing the fruits of that work. Boston Dynamics and MIT researchers say they’ve collaborated to create “Dr. Spot,” a robot that can measure a patient’s vital signs without doctor-to-patient contact.

Spot robots are four-legged and designed to nimbly navigate areas wheeled robots cannot, either autonomously or via remote control. To make Dr. Spot, MIT researchers wrote in a study that they outfitted Spot with “contactless monitoring systems,” which included radio signals and radar-based sensors to measure vital signs like respiratory rate and heart rate. Infrared cameras were used to measure fever. Dr. Spot also has a computer tablet that allows doctors to remotely speak with patients. Researchers tested Dr. Spot with volunteers at the Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.