Autonomous wheelchair for patient's transportation on healthcare institutions

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2021

Authors

André R. Baltazar (Author) Other; Marcelo R. Petry (Author) Other; Manuel F. Silva (Author) Other; António Paulo Moreira (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: SN Applied Sciences

Vol. 3

Pages: 1-13

Publisher: Springer Nature

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 1 Citation

Scopus - 2 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00T-GWA

DOI: 10.1007/s42452-021-04304-1

Abstract (EN): The transport of patients from the inpatient service to the operating room is a recurrent task in a hospital routine. This task is repetitive, non-ergonomic, time consuming, and requires the labor of patient transporters. In this paper is presented a system, named Connected Driverless Wheelchair, that can receive transportation requests directly from the hospital information management system, pick up patients at their beds, navigate autonomously through different floors, avoid obstacles, communicate with elevators, and drop patients off at the designated operating room. As a result, a prototype capable of transporting patients autonomously in hospital environments was obtained. Although it was impossible to test the final developed system at the hospital as planned, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the extensive tests conducted at the robotics laboratory facilities, and our previous experience in integrating mobile robots in hospitals, allowed to conclude that it is perfectly prepared for this integration to be carried out.The achieved results are relevant since this is a system that may be applied to support these types of tasks in the future, making the transport of patients more efficient (both from a cost and time perspective), without unpredictable delays and, in some cases, safer.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 13