SBIR Phase II: Mobile Manipulation Hospital Service Robots

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目对医院服务机器人的更广泛影响/商业潜力正在改善医院系统的护理质量，这些系统面临着越来越大的压力，需要在作为盈利业务的同时提供高质量的以患者为中心的护理。医院面临着合格护士短缺和护士流失率高的问题。护士在沟通护理计划、教育病人和防范医疗差错方面发挥着关键作用。他们在直接护理活动中花费的时间是患者满意度、更好的患者结果、更少的错误和更短的住院时间的关键决定因素。面对全美护士短缺的局面，让护士在执业资格证中拔得头筹变得越来越重要。减少他们在非护理任务上花费的时间对实现这一目标至关重要。自动化可以通过允许临床人员专注于提供熟练护理来解决这些挑战和劳动力短缺。拟议中的项目旨在开发足够通用的技术，以转移到其他市场，如长期护理设施，并最终转移到个人消费者。在家中执行辅助任务的机器人可能会增加许多老年人独立生活的可能性。这项拟议的项目将建立开发医院服务机器人的技术和商业可行性，使护士能够花更多的时间在床边陪伴病人。该项目将在三个方面取得技术进步：拟建机器人在护理病房内和医院之间自主导航的能力(导航能力)；轻松调整其操作技能以适应特定任务和特定医院/单元的物理特征(操作技能的适应性学习)；以及以社会可接受的方式与人类一起工作，包括在拥挤的走廊中进行适当的导航，语音和眼睛凝视行为，以传达机器人的意图(社交智能互操作性)。该团队打算与一家单一合作医院密切合作，反复提高用NSF资金开发的人工智能软件套件的可靠性和健壮性，并部署三项核心能力的生产质量版本。最后6个月将涉及长期部署，机器人将在合作医院的急诊病房自主工作。机器人对单位工作人员和工作流程的影响将被记录下来，最终目标是开发一种医院工作人员认为是护理团队称职成员的服务机器人。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project on hospital service robots is improving the quality of care in hospital systems that are under increased pressure to provide high-quality patient-centric care while functioning as profitable businesses. Hospitals face a shortage of qualified nurses and high rates of nurse turnover. Nurses play a critical role in communicating care plans, educating patients, and guarding against medical errors. The amount of time they spend in direct care activities is a key determinant of patient satisfaction, better patient outcomes, fewer errors, and shorter lengths of stay. In the face of nursing shortages across the U.S., it is increasingly important to have nurses performing at the 'top of their license'. Reducing the amount of time they spend on non-nursing tasks is crucial to this goal. Automation could address these challenges and labor shortage by allowing clinical staff to focus on providing skilled care. The proposed project aims to develop technology that is general-purpose enough to transfer to other markets, such as long term care facilities and, eventually, individual consumers. Robots that perform assistive tasks in homes could increase the feasibility of independent living for many older adults.The proposed project will establish the technical and commercial feasibility of developing hospital service robots that act as assistants on acute care units, enabling nurses to spend more time at the bedside with patients. This project will make technical advances along three dimensions: the ability of the proposed robot to autonomously navigate within nursing units and across the hospital (navigation capabilities); to easily adapt its manipulation skills to specific tasks and to physical characteristics of a particular hospital/unit (adaptive learning of manipulation skills); and to work alongside humans in a socially acceptable manner, including appropriate navigation in crowded hallways, speech, and eye gaze behaviors that communicate the robot's intentions (socially intelligent interoperability). The team intends to collaborate closely with a single partner hospital to iteratively improve the reliability and robustness of the artificial intelligence software suite developed with NSF funding and to deploy production-quality versions of the three core competencies. The final 6 months will involve a long-term deployment, with the robot autonomously working on an acute care unit of the partner hospital. The impact of the robot on unit staff and workflows will be documented, with the ultimate goal of developing a service robot that hospital staff view as a competent member of the care team.