Development of a hospital mobile platform for logistics tasks

Healthcare services heavily rely on healthcare staff and subsequently, there is the need to improve healthcare staff׳s workflow. The deployment of an automated mobile base will help enhance the productivity of logistics tasks in the hospital, like collection and delivery. By improving such logistic tasks healthcare personal is able to focus on other tasks to serve the community better. Currently there are commercial solutions to deal with these logistic tasks, where a mobile base is able to move from one place to another in a structured environment like a hospital. In this paper, we present our approach to develop a cost effective mobile base to be used for delivery in healthcare amenities. The proposed approach is able to navigate among stations in the hospital by first creating a map of the floor and then indicating the location of these stations. This reduces the additional cost of drawing lines on the floor or to put laser markers and many of the commercial solutions required. In addition, the proposed solution is able to navigate while being safe for the people moving around and to the transported items. The paper discusses the design consideration of the system, the navigation and the battery management to ensure that the system is able to run autonomously without the need recharge often.