Tom Andel

AGV's applying for healthcare duty
March 4, 2008

Materials handling has cornered the market on industrial applications. It has even made itself known in the entertainment world, with AGVs as the foundational technology for some amusement park rides. What other worlds are left for MH to conquer?

Healthcare beckons. Some of that same AGV technology moving people around in fun environments is now being examined as a way to help move patients throughout a hospital setting. Before this can be achieved, standards need to be revisited and smart people need to be consulted. Enter the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Material Handling Industry of America (MHIA).

“We’ve had some applications emerge where the standard as written don’t satisfy potential issues,” says Dick Ward, special advisor to the MHIA. “That’s why we’re doing a major overhaul of the ANSI/ITSDF B56.5 guided vehicle standard.”

Roger Bostelman is the perfect partner in this enterprise. He’s program manager for the intelligent control of mobility systems program at NIST. He believes materials handling should be about more than just warehousing, distribution and manufacturing. There are new partnerships and niche markets to be had.

This partnership started after a two year study of patient lift and transfer devices and the intelligence built into them. Bostelman found there weren’t many robotic products out there to answer patient transfer needs. He envisioned something that reduces the impact of elder care on hospital staff and family members.

Forklift technology provided the initial inspiration for a “HLPR Chair” -- Home Lift, Position and Rehabilitation Chair. What was needed was a level of intelligence to enable patient transfer, especially where a patient needs the cognitive assistance of an intelligent device to move where they need to go. It would have to incorporate obstacle avoidance, advanced sensor technology and path planning.

“We heard from the medical device industry that the most difficult thing is to put patients on and off toilets with dignity due to confined spaces,” Bostelman told me. “We’re targeting that as our intelligent patient transfer application.”

NIST built two of these HLPR chairs, one for research at NIST and the other to be loaned to organizations that wish to further the technology. The first taker was Florida Gulf Coast University where Dr. Jim Sweeney and Kristine Csavina are teaching a course on bioengineering product design. The purpose of this coursework is to find ways to use advanced technology for the healthcare industry. NIST's role was to solve the high risk end of this technology, while Sweeney and Csavina—and their students—look at ways the technology can best fit persons in need of this technology.

“The students are looking at making the system more automated and more robotic so the system can navigate itself through a healthcare environment,” Sweeney explains. “We’re starting with a system that can be controlled by an operator or someone else who operates it for them. In the healthcare world there’s a concept called partial weight bearing. It’s rehab technology where people are learning to walk again, so they need a lift capability while they’re in a sling system that supports part of their weight. We want to push the system forward into a next generation system that is more automated. Then we’ll go after government funding.”

But first the B56 standard has to be rethought, and that will be on the agenda during the MHIA’s spring meeting. Dick Ward says one of the things this standard needs is a balance between consultants, suppliers and end users. The first two groups will be well represented at this meeting. What’s needed is more end user input. If you’d like to learn more, contact Chris Merther, secretary of the B56 standard development committee under the Industrial Truck Standards Developing Foundation (ITSDF). He can be reached at 202-296-9880 or by email: cmerther@earthlink.net.

Posted by Tom Andel on March 4, 2008 | Comments (0)