I-Corps: Adaptive Robotic Nursing Assistants for Physical Healthcare Delivery

I-Corps：用于身体保健服务的自适应机器人护理助理

• 批准号: 2016973
• 负责人: Dan Popa
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Louisville Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-08-01 至 2022-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2016973&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Adaptive; Robotic; Nursing; Assistants

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of robotic technologies to assist healthcare workers deliver better and more efficient services to patients in hospitals and nursing home environments. The Bureau of Labor statistics indicates that there are millions of registered nurses in the United States, which makes them the largest workforce providing healthcare. The proposed technology has the potential to augment the nursing workforce and help offset personnel shortages in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and nursing homes. Adaptive robotic nursing assistants may reduce nurses’ exposure to infectious agents, reduce musculoskeletal injuries, and increase job satisfaction by freeing up time spent on item fetching, repetitive measurements of vital signs, and lifting. A robot that can communicate with the electronic health records to document completed tasks may have greater impact by saving nurses’ time devoted to paperwork. With the predicted shortage in nursing workforce, nurse workloads are expected to increase, and robot nursing assistants have the potential to handle some of the physical and administrative nursing tasks. Patients and hospitals may gain in terms of quality of care, prevention of falls, and faster service through automation.This I-Corps project is based on the development of adaptive robotic nursing assistants for physical and administrative tasks in hospital environments. The technology consists of a mobile manipulator with an omni-directional base, a 6-degrees of freedom (DOF) robotic arm, and sensors to assist with nursing scenarios such as sitting and walking with patients. The sensors include both non-contact proximity and contact tactile skins to allow the robot to operate safely in busy healthcare environments while interacting physically with nurses and patients. The technology also incorporates human-machine interfaces (HMIs) that allow users to interact with the robot in an intuitive manner that may be tailored to individual preferences. The proposed technology’s neuroadaptive learning control technology may adapt to each user’s behavior during physical human-robot interaction, ensuring both high quality interaction, programmable adaptive HMI behaviors, and robust performance under operational uncertainties. Using this technology, the robot can navigate the environment, fetch objects, and automate mundane nursing tasks while keeping healthcare workers in the decision loop.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发机器人技术，以帮助医疗人员为医院和疗养院环境中的患者提供更好，更有效的服务。劳工统计局表明，美国有数百万的注册护士，这使他们成为提供医疗保健的最大劳动力。拟议的技术有可能增加护理劳动力，并帮助抵消医院，长期护理设施和疗养院的人员短缺。自适应的机器人护理助理可以减少护士接触传染性药物，减少肌肉骨骼伤害，并通过释放用于物品的时间，重复测量生命体征和举重，从而提高工作满意度。可以与电子健康记录进行通信以记录完成任务的机器人通过节省专门用于文书工作的时间来产生更大的影响。随着护士劳动力的预测短缺，护士工作量有望增加，机器人护士助理有可能处理一些身体和行政护士任务。患者和医院可能会通过自动化来获得护理质量，预防跌倒和更快的服务。该I-Corps项目基于用于医院环境中身体和行政任务的自适应机器人护理助理的开发。技术由一个带有Omni方向基础的移动操纵器组成，自由（DOF）机器人臂的6度（DOF）和传感器都可以协助护士场景，例如与患者坐着和同行。这些传感器既包括非接触式接近性和接触触觉皮肤，又可以使机器人在繁忙的医疗环境中安全地操作，同时与护士和患者进行物理互动。该技术还结合了人机界面（HMI），使用户可以直观的方式与机器人进行交互，这可能是针对个人喜好量身定制的。提出的技术的神经适应学习控制技术可以在人体机器人互动期间适应每个用户的行为，从而确保高质量的互动，可编程的适应性HMI行为和在操作不确定性下的稳健性能。使用该技术，机器人可以在将医疗保健工作者保持在决策循环中的同时，使环境，获取对象和自动化的平凡护士任务。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准来评估通过评估来获得的支持。