Friday, April 24, 2009

Robots for telemedicine and fire fighting

The sixth annual RoboBusiness Conference and Expo in Boston focused on personal, service and mobile robotics. CCS Robotics has also developed a mobile robot called RoboRounder™ that can be facilitate for tele-medicine. A doctor in Sweden can visit patients in USA without the need for on-site assistance. Once connected over the internet or via 3G wireless link, simply tell the RoboRounder to go to a specific room. Manual driving and camera control can be used once the robot has arrived at the patient's bedside. Fully integrated medical records, charts, and tele-stration are visible to the patient and family members via the robot's large 17" LCD. Telemetry and medical instrument integration allows instant access to the patient's status as well as 2-Way video conferencing. The ultimate accessory to the Apple iPhone, RoboRounder™ can also be used for remote sales, engineering, supervision, and teaching.

Segway introduced a new robot based on the RMP 400 robotic platform and can move at 18 miles an hour while carrying up to 400 pounds. It is also armed with a water cannon than can fire 10 gallons of liquid per second. Segway envisions the robot being used for mostly fighting forest fires, but also a small amount to be used for crowd control. Segway has stated an experimentell project called P.U.M.A. (Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility) to develop next generation personell tranportation system.