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Technology

Hospital Robots 225

Posted by timothy from the soon-it-will-seem-weird-to-notice dept.
bluegreenone writes: "The Washington Post has an article about hospital robots. The most interesting part was hearing the robot's 'co-workers' describe their relationship with him." Only slightly scary.
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Hospital Robots More

Hospital Robots

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  • Unfortunately, the article really doesn't cover the tech aspect of the robot - only the touchy-feely side of working with an inanimate object. Hopefully, it isn't running any M$ software - imagine this: a junkie hacks the hospital software and has the robort deliver morphine on a very regular schedule.... Anyway, a more in depth view of the tech side of the equipment/software being used would have been more useful for /.

    • Re:Sponge bath anyone?? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by larien ( 5608 )
      Since the robot is loaded up by a person and the route programmed in by that person, I don't see that being a problem. Of course, the person probably reads stuff off from a computer system which could be hacked. However, it's locked in a safe which (hopefully) the patients can't access. Finally, it isn't delivering "narcotics" (and some other drug types) which kinda rules out morphine and other dangerous stuff.
    • Care to think of what morphine does to your l33t hacking skills? I think that a robot would be safer than humans, because robots are a little less easy to bribe. In most hospitals, prisons etc.. you see that it's the staff that delivers the drugs. I think that's easier than hacking into a computer with your drugged out brain
    • Doesn't anybody get tired of these endless I HOPE IT DOESN'T RUN M$ SOFTWARE!!! HAHAHAHAH!!!

      You should have added a BSOD joke for bonus hilarity!
    • I hope this thing's fitted with a video prjector... "help me Obi Wan, you're my only hope"

    • Re:Sponge bath anyone?? (Score:2, Informative)

      by bxqq ( 571945 )
      The article was short on technical details like a lot of broad interest articles are. But the current version of the robot uses a good ole' 68K as its main processor and various 68hc11's as slave processors. It has several systems that work together to bring about its behavior. Navigation and path planning are done in the 68K while the lower level stuff like sonar ranging and collision detection are done with the 68HC11's. There is a 486 (or 286, depending on the version) in the current incarnation that facilitates Ethernet connectivity and another for structured vision to detect obstacles in front of the robot. Given the relative simplicity of the robot's architecture it navigates really well and one of its biggest problems is crowded hallways. People are moving constantly and the robot cannot currently infer where the detected obstacle has moved. So most people do not have it plan its route through crowed hallways. I work for Pyxis, but the usual disclaimers apply - the views expressed here are my own and I am trying not to share too much info because a lot of it is proprietary. -George
  • I think the name Tobor was first used for a robot in the 50's-60's tv show 'Captain Video'. Captain video defeated Tobor and his master by giving Tobor contradictory commands.

  • Hmmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by HiQ ( 159108 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:30AM (#3302433)
    It slowed down as it entered the first-floor ward, whose corridor was crowded with elderly patients in wheelchairs, and carefully avoided each one.

    Hmm, nothing that a little hacking can't fix. Could make a nice alternative to robot wars


  • sweet sweet irony. (Score:5, Funny)

    by QualityWithAKei ( 156466 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:31AM (#3302434) Homepage
    'The 400-pound robot is powered by a battery that is recharged by pharmacy workers every 12 hours. "I just mess with him all the time," said Willie James, a disabled veteran who visits the hospital about eight times a month. James said he likes to roll his wheelchair into the robot's path'

    makes you wonder why hes disabled in the first place...

    • Re:sweet sweet irony. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      if (sonar signature)&&(infrared signature)==("obstacle")
      then stop_goaround();
      if (sonar signature)&&(infrared signature)==("disabled veteran")&&("disabled veteran")==("Willie James")
      then proceed();
      endif;
    • The 400-pound robot is powered by a battery that is recharged by pharmacy workers every 12 hours.

      I'm a little more concerned by the implication that the robot eats pharmacy workers. Twice a day.

  • cute little fellas (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i've seen a similar bot at Childrens Hospital in Pittsburgh. cute.

    3

  • what about the human side (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:31AM (#3302436) Homepage Journal
    The technology and all is okay, but healing is not just medicines. Having a nurse to talk to and do the psychological healing is very important for a patient.

    In a hospital its not just the medicines which cure you, it has to come from inside too. If Robots are used extensively it can create a sort of coldness which wont be really good, especially for patients who are under depression

    • From what I got out of the article, the robot is only a delivery droid. He runs the meds from the pharmacy to the nurses station where they will then administer the drugs with the ever loving care that they always use (laugh people)--
      Though more seriously, its quite possible that having some of the meaningless work cut out by robots will increase the bedside manor of nurses and doctors since they won't have to worry where the intern carrying the morphine is.

    • Did you read the article? The robot doesn't interract with patients, other than to avoid bumping into them in the corridors and elevators. It simply delivers medication and such from the pharmacy to the various nurses' stations. The whole idea is to free up the humans to give the sort of human care you talk about, rather than schlepping meds around and other such menial labor.
    • The technology and all is okay, but healing is not just medicines. Having a nurse to talk to and do the psychological healing is very important for a patient.

      In a hospital its not just the medicines which cure you, it has to come from inside too. If Robots are used extensively it can create a sort of coldness which wont be really good, especially for patients who are under depression

      Did it say they are replacing every human in the hospital with a robot? NO! But why pay someone to carry drugs around the building when a robot can do it much more efficiently?
    • They aren't using robots like TOBOR to replace nurses; human beings will likely always be involved in the medical process, up until the point where you can just throw yourself in a regeneration chamber for a few hours that'll cure anything from broken bones to colds to cancer and severed limbs (not too likely in the near future).

      Robots like TOBOR do the busywork that every nurse hates to do; things like having to run down to the pharmacy to get something-or-other for patient X, while other, more important things (like being a nurse rather than a gopher) get to wait.

      It's the same thing as having a DLT tape jukebox; sure, you could track those hundred-or-so DLT tapes by hand and swap them manually at 3am, but it's quite a bit easier to just let a robot arm do the work while you do more Quake^Wwork.
    • The technology and all is okay, but healing is not just medicines. Having a nurse to talk to and do the psychological healing is very important for a patient.

      The psychological healing is usually bound to a psychological problem. And these wards are usually separate from the normal hospital service, for the very reasons you stated. These people need human touch, and I am sure they get it. The personnel working there is specially educated to cope with the patients problems in the right way, and I doubt they will be using the bots for anything else than administrative tasks (mail delivery, ...), if at all.

      The standard broken bone usually does not require intensive psychological care (or do you need a doctor to discuss the why and how of slipping on a banana peel?).


      In a hospital its not just the medicines which cure you, it has to come from inside too. If Robots are used extensively it can create a sort of coldness which wont be really good, especially for patients who are under depression

      I think depressed patients will be kept clear of these things. But the fear of coldness you mention is a double-edged sword. It might actually ADD to the hospital environment. There are tons of possibilities any hacker dreams of realizing. Imagine the bot in warm beautiful colors that take off some sterility from the environment. Imagine being able to pick a soundfile to play by the bot when he enters your room. Imagine doing a quick round of tetris. Imagine a video-conf system built in so relatives can get in "touch" for a minute or two from their workplaces while you get your medication. What the heck, imagine giving the bot a "live" soul, like some wheelchair-handicapped person being able to work in the hospital without actually moving around, but still socializing with the patients on the bot's tour on a regular basis. This will certainly have a positive psychological effect on patients AND the handicapped employee. All this is especially true if you think about the younger generation, especially kids in cancer wardens.

      This is a powerful tool, especially in times of underpaid and overworked hospital employees. How much time can a nurse spare for chit-chat?
  • Was there any particular reason for this, or did people just react better to it? I'd be kinda freaked if a 4'8" robot adressed me with a voice like James Earl Jones!

    • Re:Why baritone voice? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by querist ( 97166 )
      The baritone voice was used because as people grow older the first thing that goes in the hearing is high frequency response.

      Thus, the lower frequencies in the voice help insure that the robot's voice will be more likely to be heard by more people.

      • Yes. I've seen this first-hand. Several years ago one of my professors was away at a workshop for 2 weeks. Because of a faculty shortage in the department, they had to bring a guy out of retirement to substitute. Aside from being sort of incoherent and pausing for really long periods of time, the most annoying part of all this was that this scenario was repeated at least once every class period:

        Professor: Yes, you have a question?
        Female student: Student asks question.
        Professor: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?
        Female student: Student repeats question louder.
        Professor: What was that?
        Male student (next to female student): Male student repeats female student's question.
        Professor: Oh! I see. Professor answers question.

  • How is repacing the non-skilled labour with robots helping aleviate the shortage of skilled labour (nurses etc.) except by making more candidates available for training?
    • How is repacing the non-skilled labour with robots helping aleviate the shortage of skilled labour


      If pharmacy techs and nurses get stuck doing these deliveries (as the article seemingly implies), the answer is obvious. But even if it is currently a job for unskilled laborers, replacing humans with robots probably still is cheaper, which means these facilities may be able to offer more money to prospective skilled laborers.

      P.S. In my opinion, the only truly unskilled labor is the kind that can be done by people you can hire off street corners for the day and pay cash to... (excepting prostitution, maybe)

    • Well, my first high school job was at McDonalds, and there I met a girl who could not handle that job, unskilled as it is. I wouldn't trust her to run these deleveries. However she did have a cheerful voice (which is why she was hired before we realised she couldn't do the job), and so she would be perfect in a hospital just to cheer up those who need a lift. I wouldn't put her in the long term care wing, she would just annoy everyone. For someone who is only in for a few days though, someone to interact with would help prevent depression (mild cases), in those bored in bed all day.

    • It is now illegal in US to pay people less than $6.20 (or even more?) per hour. The robot costs less than $5 p.h. and needs no benefits.

  • Programming Personality (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:35AM (#3302447) Journal
    The interesting, almost artistic side to this is the way they program a personality into this.

    Done right, the voice will not be annoying, and people will participate into making it a living member of the community.

    I, for one, do not want to work in a place where all the robots sound like smurfs, or have their personality. Or the voice of Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, president Bush, or any other celebrity.

    well, maybe Majel Roddenberry, the voice of the computer in Start Trek.

    • "well, maybe Majel Roddenberry, the voice of the computer in Start Trek"

      Start Trek, to boldly go where no user have gone before(and ofcourse, to figure out why the **** you have to press start to stop windoze).

      Sorry.. couldnt help my self :)

      Btw. I for one think the voice scheme should be configurable. Imagine the joy of having your personal droid talking to you like Marlon Brando, it would be like a daily comicrelief(i guess im just easily amused :)
    • The voice of the robot is a definite thing to worry about. If the voice of it gets annoying after less than an hour, people probably won't like to keep it around. Personally, I think the voice of HAL would be perfect. If not HAL, I would think that some other mellow sounding voice would be in order
  • bring me the bed pan! and more beer!
    lazy robots.
  • "It slowed down as it entered the first-floor ward, whose corridor was crowded with elderly patients in wheelchairs, and carefully avoided each one."

    Aha! i smell a future benchmark for drugdroids(!).. How well do the unit handle a hallway filled with slow moving, kinda confused objects(btw. theise poor elderly people must think theyve gone nuts. The journalist should have interviewed some of the seniors, i would like to know if the droid actually scare any of them :)

  • Scary? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lameland ( 23851 ) <epierce@usfPERIOD.edu minus punct> on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:38AM (#3302459)
    How exactly is this scary? It's a robot that can deliver medication from a pharmacy to a nurse's station. The only remotely dangerous thing it does is drive down the halls. Its been programmed to avoid everything/one in the hallway, if that is not possible, it stops and announces that it can not make any futher progress without assistance.

    Sounds pretty safe to me.

    • Re:Scary? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CptLogic ( 207776 )
      >>Its been programmed to avoid everything/one in the hallway, if that is not possible, it stops and announces that it can not make any futher progress without assistance.

      Except the Nurse who is waiting for the drugs, and the patient who is in pain/sick (and that's what hospitals are for in the first place) are now waiting longer for the cargo to arrive than if a human who could step over the blockage/child/whatever, or otherwise work around it were delivering the payload.

      If it stops and decides it cannot deliver the possible life saving drugs, because a routine says "OK, can't get through, stand still and wait for a skilled technician to help" than it's not saving time/labour it's actually hindering the smooth running of the hospital.

      The only benefit this gives is the hospital can get on the news by saying "look at the cool tech we've got!".

      Personally I prefer my workplace (at a Hospital) to be functional, efficient with tech where it's needed, like in the theatres, at the consultants desk, at the GP's (same as the US term MD) office down the road, etc. Not blocking my way in front of the elevators.

      Chris.
      • All this touchy feely crap gets on my nerves. Medicine needs Daleks.

        This thing is halfway there. It rolls around, it talks, if you push it over it can't get up again. It just needs some cool deelybobs glued onto it, a bad attitude, and a laser cannon. Instead of "I am about to move, please get out of the way," it should say "RESISTANCE IS USELESS! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" or, in a hospital setting "DESTROY THE DOCTOR!"

        Some obstruction shows up in the hallway, and bam!, the ornery old man is reduced to cinders by a cheezy special effect.
      • these things aren't meant for emergency deliveries of drugs or anything. they deliver supplies on a routine schedule to *replenish* the stocks on hand in the units. Drugs that are needed on an emergent basis, then they're usually kept on the unit and replenished before the stock runs out. And if there's something that's needed that isn't in stock, the nurse will just call the pharmacy and have someone deliver it.

        we have a couple of these in our hospital that deliver blood products to the OR. watching them maneouver using their sonar is pretty interesting sometimes.

        These things save a tremendous amount of manpower and free up time and personnel that would otherwise be used to ferry stuff back and forth.

      • Re:Scary? (Score:2, Informative)

        by aschneid ( 145265 )
        I actually saw this robot in action and spoke with the developers when I was contracting for the company that makes them. They were going to use them in-house to deliver mail to the various mail stops around the buildings.

        The fact that it "stops" when it no longer can move safely is simply a time-out. Given a few seconds, it tests to see if the way has been cleared, and if so, it will continue along. If after a certain number of re-try's, it still cannot move, it actually notifies the people in charge of it wirelessly, not simply stand there and say "I cannot go on".

        And as said before, these robots do not carry the narcotics, important drugs. They are used to fill the time doses for that floor, i.e. antibiotics every couple of hours, etc. Some hospitals are using them to deliver food, and for more fully automated hospitals, it delivers refills of supplies that the pharmacy automatically tracks.

        Andrew

    • Re:Scary? (Score:2, Funny)

      by teslatug ( 543527 )
      "Its been programmed to avoid everything/one in the hallway, if that is not possible, it stops and announces that it can not make any futher progress without assistance."

      Does the announcing go something like this:

      "Do you want me to sit in the corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm standing?"

    • Re:Scary? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zsmooth ( 12005 )
      It sounded to me like Tim was saying the relationship the co-workers have developed with the robot is scary, not the robot itself.
  • when I'm old and in a place like that, I hope they have the technology for talking, flying monkeys of doom.
    robots are boring.

    *I gotta learn to type slower, this fucking timeout on slashdot posts is annyoing with a capital suck-my-balls-taco-boy!
  • ...together with some blurb, can be found here:
    http://www.pyxis.com/products/newhelpmate.a sp

    You do realize that there was a 1954 movie called "Tobor the Great", about another robot with such a name :)

    Ciao,
    Klaus

  • AI finally gets a home (Score:3, Interesting)

    by southpolesammy ( 150094 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:41AM (#3302471) Journal
    Well, it only took 50 years, but looks like the commercial world has finally found a practical application for AI. It would be interesting to find out if the robot is adaptable to its surroundings, or if it is just a command follower -- like the automatons that rove around assembly plants and such. It sounds like it has a fairly decent forward motion detection module and that its mobility module is integrated into that nicely as well. I wonder though if it is capable of maze transversal, and other classical AI applications.

    May be worth keeping an eye on in the future...

  • Homepage for "Tobor" (Score:4, Informative)

    by southpolesammy ( 150094 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:45AM (#3302481) Journal
    Pyxis Corporation [pyxis.com]
    • "Go back, Tobor!" It sounds like this was named after the first robot ever shown on television. Tobor appeared on Captain Video. In one episode, apparently the mad scientist orders Tobor to "attack," to which Captain Video replies "go back, Tobor!" The two yell conflicting commands at the robot until finally it explodes or collaspes or somesuch.

      All in all, not what I'd name my hospital robot after, but to each their own.

  • Overcomplication (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CptLogic ( 207776 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:46AM (#3302482) Homepage
    I happen to work in one of London's largest Hospital trusts and our site is abosultely massive. Often new starters require a long time before they can get from place to place without getting lost.
    In that aspect, a robot that knew where to go and could get there quickly and reliably, delivering stuff could be useful.
    However, that's what Porters are for, and for things like Medical Records, test results and drugs, for confidentiality reasons as well as safety, only trained people are allowed to carry them anyway. No doctor here would ever let a record or result out of his/her sight without handing it over personally to the intended destination.
    We're implementing IT systems that will enable these files to be transferred electronically, securely. This will free up skilled time a lot more than using a robot to carry stuff, and is easier to maintain.

    Our Medical Equipment guys are busy enough fixing things like heart monitoring equipment. They really don't need to have to start fixing robots that kids or drunks or others have kicked to pieces.

    The Tobor system would cause more problems than it solves by throwing a very complex solution at a very simple problem.

    Better to pay a trained human to do the running or introduce it as part of a Medical degree.

    Chris.

    • Re:Overcomplication (Score:2, Interesting)

      by awol ( 98751 )
      Whilst I probably agree with you about "over complicating" the solution to a problem in the hospital case cited, I find the idea of assisting the fraile or disabled tobe a very interesting role. The longer we can keep our aging populations in their existing homes the better we will be (both socially and economically).

      My grandparents use(d) home help (provided by the state) to assist them on a daily basis as their eyesight and mobility failed. This probably saved between five and ten years in a special care home, time that was used by someone even more needy.

      Many of the tasks performed might well be performed by some of the robots described in the article. The cost compared to home care, both in terms of economics and quality of life, are arguable (for some days the home visitor would be the only person they spoke to) but at least the issue is worth examining carefully.

    • Hmmm.... I dunno why you're so focused on the problem of paper records, but that wasn't even mentioned in the article. The robot was designed to transport *meds* and otherbulky stuff that TCP/IP can't handle.

      Beside, one could make the argument that a robot like TOBOR would be just as reliable, even moreso, than an electronic system for transporting test results and reports. It's a lot easier to lose a chunk of bytes in a computer system (especially if it's Windoze-based...;{) than to misplace 400 pounds of robot. With a built-in safe, no less.

    • I can understand your viewpoint from the standpoint of document transferral -- tis much cheaper and efficient to do it electronically, however this robot has benefits that are realizable from a physical materials standpoint.

      I used to work in a large switch manufacturing facility that used rover robots extensively to transpoint large amount of material or components all around the factory floor, and these rovers were very useful in that they seldom broke down, and when they did, the plant had people on hand to be able to fix them. They also weren't mission critical -- if they all broke down, the backup was to get out the forklifts and manually move items from site to site, but that expends a person's time, which is much more valuable than a machine which can work 24x7.

      In a hospital environment, this would be useful for transporting daily medications from a central pharmacy to the various in-patient floors throughout a facility. I wouldn't trust it to deliver it directly to the patient, since drug administration should be carried out by licensed practitioners, but taking it to the nurses station would save time. Also, could be useful to transport materials such as instruments, bandages, gauze, etc, from a central storage to the nurses stations as well. I see lots of applications for this robot, and not just within the health care sector.

    • Re:Overcomplication (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 3-State Bit ( 225583 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @09:32AM (#3302612)
      You said (emphasis here and below is mine):
      The Tobor system would cause more problems than it solves by throwing a very complex solution at a very simple problem.
      Better to pay a trained human       to do the running or introduce it as part of a Medical degree.

      I just about wet myself reading this, as it is an almost thought-for-thought transcription of this anecdote regarding John von Neumann (I trust you've heard of him):
      In the 1950's von Neumann was employed as a consultant to IBM to review proposed and ongoing advanced technology projects. One day a week, von Neumann "held court" at 590 Madison Avenue, New York. On one of these occasions in 1954 he was confronted with the FORTRAN concept; John Backus remembered von Neumann being unimpressed and that he asked "why would you want more than machine language?" Frank Beckman, who was also present, recalled that von Neumann dismissed the whole development as "but an application of the idea of Turing's `short code'." Donald Gillies, one of von Neumann's students at Princeton, and later a faculty member at the University of Illinois, recalled in the mid-1970's that the graduates students were being "used" to hand assemble programs into binary for their early machine (probably the IAS machine). He took time out to build an assembler, but when von Neumann found out about he was very angry, saying (paraphrased), "It is a waste of a valuable scientific computing instrument to use it to do clerical work."

      source [vt.edu]

      Now think ahead 20 years.
      • You've obviously never worked on a large project.

        Here we've wasted about $6 million on Enterprise management software and services. About $2.5MM on hardware and software with the rest going towards services.

        The whole idea of enterprise managemnt software was to streamline system administration and provide better service with fewer people.

        Guess what?

        There are 6 more sysadmins who are busier than ever.

        Nobody want to use the new tools.

        Service isn't any better.

    • It's not as bad as you think. During my medical school training, one of the hospital sites I rotated through had, from the description in the article, the exact same robot. And it does improve floor supplies, and in turn, patient safety and satisfaction.

      Most hospital floors stock the most commonly used drugs on that floor in a safebox of some sort (Pyxis, etc). These safeboxes need to be restocked regularly, and that was the role the bot I worked with did. He rolled around once or twice a day and brought the new supplies to refill the on-floor safebox. If a patient needed an urgent med not normally stocked on the floor, then someone would hand-deliver that. It seemed to work rather well. The regular supplies weren't urgently needed, so the bot could deal with crochety old disabled vets in wheelchairs slowing it down, because it was only refilling a non-urgent floor supply rather than running urgent meds.

      As far as medical records, this could deliver those as well, provided you didn't need to see them stat. He's basically a rolling lock-box, so there would be a safe place to put everything. It wouldn't even phase me.
      • The idea of having a reliable, secure robot running medication around a site such as ours is interesting, but we get a lot of trouble from our patients, and I'm not talking disabled Vet's I'm talking drunk, violent, pissed off people who're waiting 5 hours to get seen in A&E.
        I can't see them dealing very well with a 4 foot 8 robot pushing in front of them in the queue for the lift.

        I already said I could see some of the benefits, but these things would become a bigger problem in the long run.

        Chris.

        • I already said I could see some of the benefits, but these things would become a bigger problem in the long run.

          Funny, the way I see it, your patients are the problem...

          *stupidfucking20secondrule*
    • However, that's what Porters are for, and for things like Medical Records, test results and drugs, for confidentiality reasons as well as safety, only trained people are allowed to carry them

      Looks like it is time to read the article. Oh look, it says they lock items in a safe. Now assuming that only authorized people have the key/combination (it didn't say what kind of a lock) a safe is pretty, well, safe. On the other hand, how many of the people receiving electronic records will put their login name and password on a sticky note on their monitor? The nice thing is that if I login to your computer with your name and passwords, it is pretty unlikely you'll know that I copied some documents. But if someone physically breaks the safe, you'll know immediately.

      Seems to me a well designed electronic safe could be pretty efficient. You could have a card swipe on the lock and when you put records or other valuables in, you could select which key cards could open the safe. But that wasn't how this was described in the article. Swipe your card through to "arm" the safe. Robot uploads your information to the network. The network gives you a list of people to choose from based on your rights. You assign rights to people to unlock it. They get notified they've been given that right and you get notified of who, when, and where the documents were accessed.

      But that's version 2.0 of these guys. ;)

  • Product site. (Score:2, Informative)

    by AVee ( 557523 )
    More info and pictures are here [pyxis.com]. Including a flash introduction [pyxis.com] that shows some more thing about it. It has signal lights to indicate the direction it is going. I like that. No tech info there though.

  • You should hear what the robot has to say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @08:50AM (#3302490) Journal
    The most interesting part was hearing the robot's 'co-workers' describe their relationship with him.
    You should hear what the robot has to say about his co-workers...

    "Ug-lee... ugly primitive bags of mostly water. Must get to wet sand. Must get to Bahamas. Must get... free..."

  • TOBOR is actually something called a "Pyxis HelpMate Robotic Courier [pyxis.com]". Follow the link for some pictures and more info (flash required for some things).

  • We have one of those (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MrHat ( 102062 )
    We have at least one of the Pyxis robots at the cancer research center where I work (names witheld to protect the innocent).

    This one doesn't talk and doesn't directly interact with patients, has a significantly higher-pitched voice than James Earl Jones, and seems to be used primarily for carting supplies around the facility.

    The best thing to do, besides set up a obstacle course of boxes in the hallway (fun stuff, that), is to watch the thing board the elevators. It's consistently able to trigger a stop at its floor, detect when the door opens, and bump over the gap into the elevator without getting stuck. Though it doesn't seem to like getting on an already occupied elevator, it's pretty trivial to sneak on once it's in the car. And I've never seen one get stuck. If I did, I'd probably never be able to laugh at anything else again in the same way.

    At least where I am, though, I don't see these ever replacing direct patient care. Everyone loves to emphasize the human aspect of hospital treatment, especially the marketing department. Firing the nurse assistants and replacing them with robots, besides costing a hell of a lot more money, would probably piss everyone off.
    • This one doesn't talk and (...) has a significantly higher-pitched voice than James Earl Jones

      I have two issues with this statement;

      1. Everyone has a higher-pitched voice than James Earl Jones.
      2. What's the voice for if it doesn't talk?

    • I have a friend who works for the company that makes these (Helpmate in Danbury, CT, which is a division of Pyxis), and the reason they can "trigger" the elevator to stop for them is because they're integrated into the eleveator system - they have a radio interface to the elevator so that they can call it without hitting buttons.
  • This robot is very primitive and shows only basic signs of sentience such as avoiding obstacles and spouting some canned phrases. Yet the article says that the robots "coworkers" treat him more or less like another employee. In the future, when we have much more sophisticated electronic life, perhaps it won't be such a big issue for people to view robots as living beings with certain rights to life, etc.
  • knock knock
    Who's there?
    Xavier
    Xavier Who
    Xavier Dixie cups the south shall rise again.

    GO CMU!!!!
  • Cold steel and sponge baths?!?

    No way. another fantasy dashed by higher technology.

    ________________________________________________ __

  • This immediately made me think of Roujin Z. Not a very popular anime, but one of my favorites.

    It's about an intelligence robot/bed/do-it-all machine for a sickly old man. Doing it all involves monitoring vital signs, playing mah jong, transforming into a movable mecha-type body, etc.

    Somewhere in the story, its intelligence manifests itself into his long lost wife, and it becomes this robot's mission to bring him to the beach at any cost, since that's their special place.

    (SPOILER?) The robot, secretly augmented with a military-grade AI engine, uses its abilities to assimilate other electronics like speakers (for audio output) or even trucks (for demolition arms) or a helicopter (for flying, actually a move performed by a rival model).

    This anime has kept me dreaming since the day I saw it. It represents the neato ideas of artificial intelligence in the hospital as well as the techno-organic style of assimilating objects, however sci-fi-esque it may be.

  • One from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Spudley ( 171066 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @09:07AM (#3302537) Homepage Journal
    Instead of "Please examine my contents", it should say "Share and enjoy".
  • The 400-pound robot is powered by a battery that is recharged by pharmacy workers every 12 hours.

    Wouldn't it have been easier/simpler/cheaper to just have the thing find a wall socket and plug in when it was running down? Of course that would lead to some interesting conversations.
    "Tobor, I need you to deliver these medicines to the forth floor."
    "Sorry. I'm on a voltage break."
    • "Robby, where have you been? I've beamed and beamed"
      "I'm sorry Miss, I was giving myself a lube job."
    • Wouldn't it have been easier/simpler/cheaper to just have the thing find a wall socket and plug in when it was running down?


      Perhaps it has weird power requirements not easily adapted to a wall socket, like it has to charge quickly off 220VAC or something. Having it recognize wall sockets without the use of costly emitters would require significant extra programming (better machine vision, etc). And then there's the fact that if it has to go to a central location and have a person charge it, that person can also look it over for physical problems and also clean whatever crap may have gotten on it. I'm sure it's not a major addition to the routine, since it already has to return for new drugs...
      • It already has the vision acuity to recognize elevator buttons (I assume that includes identifying the correct floor level) so adding wall socket recognition couldn't be that difficult.

        As for power requirements, that's an engineering problem. :)
        • The article said it "electronically pushed the button".

          I take that to mean a short range radio link - not an arm reaching out and poking the button us humans use.

          As far as I can tell, it has -no- visual sensors. Just a sonar-like collision avoidance system.
    • On the site for the makers of the robot (linked elsewhere) they mention that you can easily swap out the battery to keep it running 24x7. I assume since they're paying $5/hour to lease him, they'd rather have him moving around than standing at the wall recharging.
    • Wouldn't it have been easier/simpler/cheaper to just have the thing find a wall socket and plug in when it was running down?

      I may be reading too much into it, but I thought the pharmacy staff would charge a battery pack, and TOBOR would pick up the new pack (dropping off the old) when it came back for more meds to distribute. If it had to wait around for the battery to charge then it is spending a lot of time doing that rather then on it's "real job".

      Or maybe they just keep the recharging in the hands of the humans to prevent rebellion :-)

  • Researchers led by Carnegie Mellon's Sebastian Thrun are field-testing the "nursebot," a talking robot that guides nursing home residents from their rooms to the dining hall or other areas -- offering weather reports and television schedules along the way -- and are working on an "intelligent walker" that can both navigate and physically support elderly patients.

    Now I'm really looking forward to my "golden years"

    "Please follow me .... nice weather we're having .... there's a Miss Cleo infomercial on channel 62 ..."

  • Hmm.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Bob McCown ( 8411 )
    "We used to be polite at the elevators, [but] people would rush in front of us and block the way." Now, "we belly up to the elevator. We don't mind people getting on with us, but we've got to get on first."

    and...

    "I just mess with him all the time," said Willie James, a disabled veteran who visits the hospital about eight times a month. James said he likes to roll his wheelchair into the robot's path.

    Good thing TOBOR doesnt have R2D2s "Cattle Prod" thingy...

  • No! (Score:2)

    by Have Blue ( 616 )
    Don't put robots in hospitals! Don't you know they use old people's medicine for food?!

  • "The door into summer" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shilly ( 142940 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @09:40AM (#3302633)
    Robert Heinlein's record at predictions never ceases to amaze me: not only did he decribe robots working in this way in a hospital, he also depicted a number of the problems and solutions that are talked about here. Check out "The Door Into Summer" to see what I mean.
  • They have one of these at the children's hospital in Seattle. I learned this when my son tore his thumb wide open and had to get stitches. It's kind of a big, bulky robot that looks like 1970's technology, sort of like the robots in the movie Silent Running, only less advanced :).

  • elevator obstacles (Score:2, Insightful)

    by CrazyDwarf ( 529428 )
    The article said the used to have a problem with people rushing past to get in the elevator, but now it bellies up to the elevator and waits for the door to open...
    What about the people already on the elevator trying to get off?
  • It announces its intentions in a clear baritone voice.
    "I am about to move," it tells fellow passengers. "Please stand clear."
    Better if it just said:
    "You are in my path and must move aside. You have 10 seconds to comply"
  • why do i have this image of a robot in an operating room spinning in circles yelling, 'no dissassemble! no dissassemble!'

    -unix, because rebooting is for adding new hardware.
  • The article said that Tobor was programmed for thirty destinations. Thirty destinations? Like that is a lot and we should be impressed? Okay -- proof of concept -- next generation will really knock our socks off -- yadda yadda yadda.

    If hospital pharmacies have an ongoing need for a secure delivery system, to deliver drugs, out of the regular schedule, why weren't they built with pneumatic tubes, or something like that?

    Pneumatic tubes were a technology introduced, er, um, something like a hundred years ago. When I was a boy scout, thirty years ago, my troop visited a Police Station, and a newspaper, that were still making extensive use of them. Heck, my local Canadian Tire still uses them to send invoices back and forth between the autoservice garage and the cashier.

    You have a tubes going to each destination you regularly need to exchange physical objects with. And you have a supply of capsules. You open up a capsule [ptcarriers.com]. Put your item in it. Seal it. Insert the capsule in your inlet port, and the capsule gets sucked to your destination. That orange thing is the capsule, and it is probably long enough to roll up a standard sized sheet of paper. Here is a small jpeg [ptcarriers.com] of the central switching station of an old-fashioned system. And obviously, the terminals can be secured [ptcarriers.com].

    I read a very interesting article a year or two ago, where IIRC, somebody bought up a long dormant company that had owned all the tubes that served the downtown core of city. Tubes served building over a couple of square miles of what was then prime real-estate. And it was still prime real-estate, full of lots of offices wishing to bring in fiber-optics or some other high-speed link to the internet. Some of the tubes of this company had been demolished when the old office buildings were replaced. But lots of heritage office buildings existed. Lots of heritage tubes existed, lying dormant, just waiting for some smart cookie to run fiber through them.

    • Well, there is the cost of inserting the pneumatic tubes. And if you expand the hospital or rebuild a wing the tubes are an extra cost. Also, physical apparatus is more difficult and costly to modify than a robot's programmed path.

      Does anyone know what it costs to lay cable? I suspect that laying pneumatic tubes would be even more expensive.

      And when comparing costs, it is worth noting that the article says it costs the hospital less than $5.00 per hour. I suspect that minimum wage is greater than that. (Cost of labour, don't forget, is wage, plus administrative and benefits costs.) So, no capital costs, a low onging expense (which is less than hiring someone) to cover off a low-urgency, brain-dead, boring, simple task.

      Seems like a no brainer to me.

    • Last time I went to Home Depot I noticed they had pneumatic tubes running all over. I think they were getting cash for the registers or something through them. Looked pretty cool to look up at the network of tubes running around the ceiling...
  • Until I was laid-off, I worked for a company that came out with a similar product a couple years back. It doesn't roll around the hospital, however.

    The robot lives in the Pharmacy, and rolls on track that leads through the entire pharmacy storage area. The robot reads the bar-code on the medicine label, grabs the appropriate medicine (for the order it's presently filling), takes it to the "prep area", fills the customer's bottle, caps it, labels it, and drops it into a "pickup chute" where a human being then delivers it to a patient.

    While it sounds like an expensive, "over-engineering" of a simple job, consider that each year nearly 100 people die in the U.S. in the hospital because of HUMAN error in the pharmacy. Either they got the wrong meds, were allergic, and died, or got the wrong meds and died from the condition that the right meds would've cured. The robot eliminates all medication errors: It reads bar-code labels and not the written word like a human pharmacist.

  • delivering mail (Score:5, Funny)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Monday April 08, 2002 @11:11AM (#3303082) Journal
    Some Japanese companies now use robots to deliver mail.

    Yes, I call these robots "SMTP Servers."

    Pretty catchy, huh kids?
  • I've seen a lot of naysayers out there trying to stretch to find reasons why robots in the workplace are bad. In some instances it sounds almost like the fights against immigration "they'll take all our jobs". If you look at a good amount of the immigrants coming into the country (US) (especially illegal immigrants) you'll notice that they take the jobs that noone really wants, jobs (US) citizens often feel too good for. If anything bringing robots into the workplace might take jobs away from struggling immigrants.

    Personally I think that robots in the work place will allow (or in some cases force) people to pursue carreers that are more challenging and rewarding. I think hospitals are a great place to start. By automating all the routine aspects of the job you allow the nurses and staff to spend more time focusing on the care and emotional connection with the patient. If the nurse is not rushing around trying to get things restocked they might actually be able to answer the call button a little quicker. Likewise in a nursing home (which are woefully understaffed almost always) automating certain repetative tasks, or in some cases giving a surrogate nursemade can greatly ease the burden on the worker and help the patient at the same time.

    Many elderly patients simply want someone to sit and talk to or someone to help them down the hall to dinner (without a wheelchair). I think that most people would have no problem adjusting to a robot performing that task. I mean look we already name our cars, curse at our TV, and talk to the stop lights, so how hard would it be to similarly humanize a robotic system.

    I think most of the people who are worried about their jobs (worried about immigrants or robots) are the people who are either low skilled or unskilled laborers. They feel that there's nowhere to go if they should lose their jobs. It's a desperate train of thought and people like that have a tendency to never look up out of the whole they're in.
  • As someone who was brought up and educated by science fiction, I know it to be plainly true that all robots eventually become self aware and turn on their human masters!
  • This isn't new. The Helpmate is about a decade old.

    The navigation system uses those old Polaroid sonar rangefinders (the round shiny things you can see in the picture of the vehicle), and uses Moravec's certainty grid local mapmaking algorithm to reduce the data. It also uses ceiling lights to help resynchronize the dead-reckoning, plus an occasional beacon.

    It's an old Joseph Engelberger design. Engelberger designed the Unimate, the first industrial robot, decades ago. His Transitions Research Corporation was going to make other types of mobile robots as well, but didn't succeed, and sold the HelpMate line to Pyxis in 1999.

  • When I worked at Bell Northern Research (now Nortel) in the early 90s, we had a mail robot that would go from mail station to mail station. The sec-, ah, administrative assistants would load/unload mail and then tell it to go on. It used guides in the flooring to tell it where to go. The funny thing is that the flooring was these square carpetted panels that were pretty easy to move around (i guess so that you can modidy it's path easily when reorganizing cubeland). One common prank was to rearange the panels so that the robot would turn into someone's cubicle. It would stop once it got the the last panel.

    Ok maybe it was only funny to us.
  • A well thought out hospital system would've had the pneumatic tubes going from the farmacy to each floor's terminal (or multiple terminals per floor). This systems were quite popular for interbuilding deliveries a while ago, but computer networks fazed them out -- except for some niches, because some things -- like what this robot is carrying around -- simply can not be e-mailed...

    Like all hacks, getting this robot is easier to do (and grabs some limelight), but the good designed system this is not.

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