title: An Intelligent Robotic Hospital Bed for Safe Transportation of Critical Neurosurgery Patients Along Crowded Hospital Corridors.
abstract: We present a novel design of an intelligent robotic hospital bed, named Flexbed, with autonomous navigation ability. The robotic bed is developed for fast and safe transportation of critical neurosurgery patients without changing beds. Flexbed is more efficient and safe during the transportation process comparing to the conventional hospital beds. Flexbed is able to avoid en-route obstacles with an efficient easy-to-implement collision avoidance strategy when an obstacle is nearby and to move towards its destination at maximum speed when there is no threat of collision. We present extensive simulation results of navigation of Flexbed in the crowded hospital corridor environments with moving obstacles. Moreover, results of experiments with Flexbed in the real world scenarios are also presented and discussed.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Andrey V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Savkin
authors.forename: Ray
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Clout
authors.forename: Hung T
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Nguyen
mesh_terms: D001513:Beds; D003422:Critical Care / Q000379:methods; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D004865:Equipment and Supplies, Hospital; D000069550:Machine Learning; D055805:Moving and Lifting Patients / Q000295:instrumentation; D009493:Neurosurgery / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014187:Transportation of Patients / Q000379:methods*