I-Corps: Healthcare Service Robots

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Past commercialization efforts for robotics have been dominated by mobile bases. Robotic arms tend to stay in cages or far from humans (e.g., manufacturing). This I-Corps team wants to bring mobile manipulators to human environments to perform repetitive manual tasks that people find undesirable. The team's initial hypothesis is that surface cleaning is one such task. It is anticipated that automation of surface sanitation can achieve more surface coverage with higher frequency, creating a more sanitary environment that reduces illness. Such a robot also has the potential to automate undesirable manual labor, as well as reduce human injuries associated with repetitive physical work. Automating tasks requiring lower skills or manual labor could ameliorate the labor shortage by allowing humans to focus more on high-skilled labor. This project, therefore, aims to define a commercial application for an intelligent mobile robot. The presence of ubiquitous, friendly robots that can be used by more people will ideally also inspire younger generations to pursue STEM education, leading to a more skilled and competitive American workforce. This project aims to define a commercial application for an intelligent mobile robot with an arm (mobile manipulator). Based on over eight years of research results in Human-Robot Interaction, the team intends to apply learning from demonstration (LfD) algorithms to make the robot programmable by end users with no robotics experience, which can be accomplished using an intuitive social dialogue. The robot will also need to act autonomously in the presence of humans in a way that is transparent and predictable, which requires developing manipulation and navigation behavior with social awareness. The bulk of the team's methodology during the I-Corps program will be dedicated to interviews for customer discovery, with an initial target customer as health care establishments. To validate this segment, the team intends to visit hospitals and long-term care facilities to identify customer pain points, as well as processes and barriers for adopting robotic technology. In addition, the team plans to interview experts, attend meetings, and conduct literature searches to better understand the domain; and, by the end of the I-Corps program, it expects to have defined a set of key tasks that the robot must perform to provide value to our target customer segment. These tasks will define specifications for a minimum viable design of the robot hardware and software.