the easy answer to what good are
they is “they are a lot of fun.” It
doesn’t matter that a lot of drones
end up in a tree (like in Figure 8) or
smashed into sidewalks when the
battery is suddenly drained while at
100 feet in the air. Of course, there
are easy ways to retrieve your drone
as shown in Figure 9.
Robots for the
Medical Field
Although toy robots are of
interest to a lot of folks (from kids to
adults), I will instead delve into a
more serious area of robotics and one
of the most successful categories:
medical robots. This group is quite
diverse and includes surgical robots,
hospital robot assistants, robotic
prostheses and exoskeletons, doctor-patient telepresence robots, and
home health care assistant robots.
Medical costs are rising
dramatically, and hospitals and
medical personnel are anxious to
reduce costs within the profession.
The use of robotics has become a
proven way to reduce expenses while
improving the overall quality of the
medical field.
I have personally experienced
robot surgery and can assure you that
these types of robots were not
developed to replace surgeons but to
enhance their capabilities in certain
types of surgeries. A prostate surgery
is a good example of a popular use of
a robotic system. This is not the
easiest part of the body to see clearly
while staring down at a patient on
a typical operating table.
Using a surgical robot such as
the da Vinci, the surgeon can sit
comfortably in a chair 15 feet away
from the patient and see
everything in high definition 3D
color through a viewfinder at the
surgeon’s console. With an array of
interchangeable instruments, the
surgeon can delicately sever
unneeded tissues, sew organs back
together, and perform many other
manipulations. This is a great
example of what robots are good for.
Healthcare in the
Home
Just a couple months ago, I wrote
an entire article about healthcare
robots, but it was about the history of
the development of that segment of
robotics. I now want to concentrate
on the reasoning and economics of
why these types of robots are so
important.
As I mentioned earlier, healthcare
costs have skyrocketed and
eliminating some of the human
elements is a way to cut costs. By
2030, more than 20 percent of US
residents are projected to be 65 years
of age and over, compared with 13
percent in 2010 and 9.8% in 1970.
Other countries such as Japan are
expecting a much higher percentage.
I have never made a secret of my
desire to develop a truly useful robotic
home healthcare personal assistant,
but robots do have limitations. There
is no robot in existence now or in the
near future that can absolutely
perform all the tasks normally ascribed
to human beings.
Human’s manipulative abilities,
strength proportional to body mass,
vision, and other senses connected to
the most powerful on-site computer —
the human brain — make humans
superior to robots in almost all areas.
The need for a robot in the home
service arena stems from the great
costs involved with human assistants.
As usual, labor costs are the main
drivers for the utilization of robots to
replace people. One of the main
negatives is the inability of an
individual to operate continually for a
full 168 hour week without rest or
sleep. It would take four 42 hour
human shifts to cover a full week of
work. Toss in sickness, work breaks,
meal times, and possible negative
work attitudes, and you begin to see
how a reliable personal assistant robot
just might make a lot of sense.
Multiply the 8,760 hours a year
by a wage of $15 an hour and you
have a cost of $131,400 per year for
four humans rotating shifts with most
likely a lack of experience and health
care knowledge.
Usually, a person who needs daily
care/help, does not require a
registered nurse 24/7. In fact, they
certainly do not need an expensive
robot to remind them to take their
pills, or to follow them around like a
homesick dog. What they mostly
require is basic help for simple but
crucial physical tasks. This could be
assistance after falling on the floor
(and receiving no injuries) to getting
back on their feet; getting on to and
off of a toilet; into and out of bed;
getting out of a chair; and reaching
objects too high to grasp.
Simple cooking tasks such as
retrieving food items from a freezer
and placing them into a microwave
oven and programming it seem easy
for most of us, but can be difficult for
some elderly persons. This is an area
where a robot would be very useful.
Telepresence (as seen in Figure
10) is another area that shows
great promise. Health professionals
as well as close relatives can keep
an eye on and have constant
communications with an elderly
person.
It is the physical assistance to
a person’s body that presents the
greatest challenge to a robot’s
design. I have studied this area for
years. Injury to a human by a robot
will draw lawyers like flies to a cow
pasture. Physical needs of invalid
and elderly patients vary
SERVO 03.2016 63
Figure 10. Telepresence is growing, with many
companies developing inexpensive systems.
