Carl F. R. Weiman

HelpMate™: A robotic materials transport system

Abstract HelpMate™ is a robotic materials transport system designed for hospitals and nursing homes. HelpMate is an autonomous robot that uses vision, ultrasonic proximity and infrared proximity to sense its environment for navigation along hallways and for obstacle avoidance. HelpMate can navigate throughout a hospital, following a map stored in its memory, carrying medical supplies, late meal trays, records and lab samples for delivery to nursing units or hospital departments. Requirements analysis, navigation technology and software architecture are presented.

Helpmate: A Mobile Robot For Transport Applications

HelpMate is a mobile robotic materials transport system that performs fetch and carry tasks at Danbury Hospital. It navigates along the main arteries of the hospital, crossing between buildings via interconnecting corridors and uses infrared communication links to communicate with the elevator controller. HelpMate has been designed to work safely around humans, smoothly rerouting its local path to avoid obstacles while maintaining its mission. Safety features include both non-contact and contact obstacle sensing, emergency stop switches, auto/manual mode switches, flashing warning lights, turn indicators, and a failsafe controls design. HelpMate uses odometry, sonar and infrared proximity sensors, and vision as navigation inputs. An onboard card reader provides authorized personnel access to run time control and cargo transfer. Sensor information collected en route is used to build and maintain local navigation maps. A general knowledge of the structured properties of the world is assumed, and used both in collecting and rationalizing the sensor information and updating the robots local knowledge base. All navigation and path planning is conducted under the direction of onboard processors.