A decision framework for operation management of reconfigurable mobile service robots in hospitals

This paper describes the decision framework for managing a group of reconfigurable mobile service robots, built to help the health care personnel in their logistic activities that range from medicine delivery to virtual consultation to spillage cleaning to surveillance patrolling and environmental monitoring. A formal model describes the operation of the robotic system. A decision framework is proposed for operation management of the robotic system including configuration, location, power management of robots and mission allocation and real time control. Finally a linear programming approach is proposed for configuration, location and power management of robots. Numerical experimentation is conducted to show the limit of such an approach.