Steen Dawids

Service robots for hospitals: A case study of transportation tasks in a hospital

In this paper, the need for automated transportation systems for hospitals is investigated. Among other alternatives, mobile robots stand out as the most prominent means of automation of transportation tasks in hospitals. Existing transportation routines of a hospital are analyzed in order to verify the need for automation and identify possible areas of improvement. The analysis shows that most of the existing transportation is carried out manually, and hospitals can greatly benefit from automated transportation. Based on the results of the analysis, three alternatives are derived for implementing mobile service robots for transportation tasks in hospitals.

Mapping of multi-floor buildings: A barometric approach

This paper presents a new method for mapping multi-floor buildings. The method combines laser range sensor for metric mapping and barometric pressure sensor for detecting floor transitions and map segmentation. We exploit the fact that the barometric pressure is a function of the elevation, and it varies between different floors. The method is tested with a real robot in a typical indoor environment, and the results show that physically consistent multi5floor representations are achievable.

Empirical evaluation of a practical indoor mobile robot navigation method using hybrid maps

This video presents a practical navigation scheme for indoor mobile robots using hybrid maps. The method makes use of metric maps for local navigation and a topological map for global path planning. Metric maps are generated as occupancy grids by a laser range finder to represent local information about partial areas. The global topological map is used to indicate the connectivity of the ‘places-of-interests’ in the environment and the interconnectivity of the local maps. Visual tags on the ceiling to be detected by the robot provide valuable information and contribute to reliable localization. The navigation scheme based on the hybrid metric-topological maps saves memory space and is also scalable and adaptable since new local maps can be easily added to the global topology, and the method can be deployed with minimum amount of modification if new areas are to be explored. The video demonstrated that the method is implemented successfully on physical robot in a hospital environment, which provides a practical solution for indoor navigation.

Practical indoor mobile robot navigation using hybrid maps

This paper presents a practical navigation scheme for indoor mobile robots using hybrid maps. The method makes use of metric maps for local navigation and a topological map for global path planning. Metric maps are generated as 2D occupancy grids by a range sensor to represent local information about partial areas. The global topological map is used to indicate the connectivity of the ‘places-of-interests’ in the environment and the interconnectivity of the local maps. Visual tags on the ceiling to be detected by the robot provide valuable information and contribute to reliable localization. The navigation scheme based on the hybrid metric-topological maps is scalable and adaptable since new local maps can be easily added to the global topology, and the method can be deployed with minimum amount of modification if new areas are to be explored. The method is implemented successfully on a physical robot and evaluated in a hospital environment.