PRE2023 3 Group5

Medical Robot

Group Members

Name	Student ID	Department
Yuting Dong	1546104	Computer Science
Jie Liu	1799525	Computer Science
Zhiyang Zhang	1841734	Mechanical Engineering
Samir Saidi	1548735	Computer Science
Feiyang Yan	1812076	Computer Science
Nikola Mitsev	1679759	Computer Science

Introduction

Problem Statement

Nowadays, there is an increasing amount of people who are sick, elderly or have disabilities which prevent them from taking care of themselves. For some people, travelling constantly to hospitals or clinics for a regular health test is always a struggle. The caretaker is thus a necessary role that must be present in our society to ensure the well-being and quality of life for individuals facing these challenges. However, contemporary families often face the dual dilemma of struggling to allocate time for caregiving responsibilities and encountering financial barriers that hinder their ability to engage professional caregivers. Consequently, a significant portion of the population in need is left without the essential care they require.

Objectives

Considering the current situation that the society is facing regarding health care, we've decided to design a home robot with a primary focus on remote healthcare that is easily accessible to individuals. The robot should be able to cover the basic needs of the patients, such as dispensing pills, conducting tests and establishing connections with healthcare institutes. The main goal of the robot is to bridge the gap between the patients and their caregivers or doctors. On one hand, the robot closely monitors the individual's health on a daily basis and ensure that the necessary health-related tasks are performed seamlessly. On the other hand, it acts as a channel for communication, facilitating regular updates and consultations with healthcare professionals.

The design of the robot should cover these features:

1. Customizable Functionality: We recognize that the needs for healthcare can vary greatly from one individual to another and our product is designed to cater to a diverse range of users. Therefore, our robot should be highly customizable, allowing users to tailor its functions to their specific requirements. The functions may include but not limited to dispensing medication, temperature monitoring, blood pressure test, etc.

2. Health Monitoring: The robot should be able to analyze basic medical conditions based on test results of the user and continuously monitor the vital signs, such as blood pressure, temperature, and blood glucose levels. The analysis data will be stored for further reference. Relevant health suggestions will be available from time to time to keep both the user and the caregiver informed about health conditions.

3. Communication bridge: The robot will facilitate communication between users, healthcare professionals, and caregivers. It should be able to send test results directly to health institutes, help users schedule appointments, and even assist in ordering medications.

4. User-Friendly Interface: The robot should be equipped with a user-friendly interface, considering the potential challenges that elderly and disabled individuals might face when operating the device. For example, a touchscreen and voice-activated controls are preferred.

Approach

In order to reach the objectives, we split the project into 5 stages. The five stages are distributed into 8 weeks with some overlaps. Everyone in the team is responsible for some tasks in these stages.

1. Research stage: In week 1 and 2, we mainly focus on the formulation of problem statements, objectives, and research. We first need to make a plan for the project. The direction of this project is fixed by defining the problem statement and objectives. Doing literature research helps us to gather information of state-of-the-art, the advantages and limitations of current solutions.
2. Requirements stage: From week 2 to week 4 we will do user analysis to further determine the goal and requirements of our product. We will collect information about user needs by surveys and interviews. The surveys and interviews can contain information found in the research stage. For example, how does the user think about the current solution, what improvements can be made.
3. Specification stage: This stage is in week 3 and 4, in which we create the specification of our product using techniques such as UML diagrams and drawing user interface. From the user analysis and the research, we can create the specification in more detail. After this, a test plan will be made so that the product can be tested to see whether it meets the requirements and the specification.
4. Implementation stage: The prototype of our product will be implemented in this stage from week 5 to week 7. We plan to only create the digital part of the product due to time constraints. Also, a more formal test plan will be constructed for later use.
5. Testing stage: In week 7 and 8, the prototype will be tested by the test plan and we can examine whether the product reaches our goal and solves the problem. The finalization on the prototype, presentation and wiki page will be done in this stage.

Planning

We created a plan for the development process of our product based off of the previously described approach. This plan is shown in the Gantt chart below:

A Gantt chart of our development plan.

Task Division

We subdivided the tasks amongst ourselves as follows:

Research			Requirements			Specification			Implementation			Testing
Task	Group member		Task	Group member		Task	Group member		Task	Group member		Task	Group member
Define problem statement and objectives	Everyone		User Analysis	Jie		Create UML Diagrams	Everyone (TBD)		Implement the prototype	Everyone (TBD)		Test the prototype	Everyone (TBD)
Setup the Wiki page	Yuting		Create Survey	Jie & Feiyang		Define user interface	Everyone (TBD)		Create formal acceptance test plan	Everyone (TBD)		Work on presentation	Everyone (TBD)
Literature research	Everyone		Analyse Survey	Jie & Feiyang		Make a test plan	Everyone (TBD)		Finalize prototype	Everyone (TBD)
Write Section "Approach"	Yuting		Write Formal Requirements	Everyone (TBD)		Finalize wiki	Everyone (TBD)
Write Section "Planning"	Samir
Write Introduction	Zhiyang
Write Section "State of the Art"	Samir & ... (TBD)
Perform Stakeholder Analysis	Everyone
Update Wiki	Everyone

Milestones

By the end of Week 1 we should have a solid plan for what we want to make, a brief inventory on the current literature, and a broad overview of the development steps required to make our product.

By the end of Week 3 we should have analysed the needs of our users and stakeholders, formalized these needs as requirements according to the MoSCoW method, and have a clear state-of-the-art.

By the end of Week 4 we should have specified the requirements as UML diagrams, blueprints, etc., created a basic user interface, and created an informal test plan.

By the end of Week 6 we should have created a formal acceptance test plan.

By the end of Week 7 we should have finished the implementation of our product's prototype.

By the end of Week 8 we should have tested the product according to the acceptance test plan, finished the presentation, finalized the prototype, and finalized our report.

Deliverables

The final product will be an Android application, representing the user interface, intended to be used alongside a physical robot which we will specify and try to (partially) implement.

The application will have two views, one for the patient/user, and one for the caretaker/doctor.

The robot will be equipped with a variety of sensors which will relay data to the application and should be capable of interacting with the user(s) and caretaker(s).

Logbook

Week 1

Name	Total hours	Tasks
Yuting	6	Introduction lecture (1), meeting (1.5), Approach section (1.5), literature study (2)
Jie
Zhiyang	6	Introduction lecture (1), meeting (1.5), Introduction section (1.5), literature study (2)
Samir	6	Introduction lecture (1), meeting (1.5), Gantt chart (1), Planning section (1.5), Literature research (1)
Feiyang	5	Introduction lecture (1), meeting (1.5), literature study (2.5)
Nikola

Literature study

1. (Existing product regarding robot that dispensing pills) The robot, managed via an app, securely stores and dispenses medication, provides verbal reminders, and can alert caregivers if doses are missed. It features facial recognition and motion detection to ensure the right person receives the medication. The device complies with patient privacy laws and is positioned as a health care solution amid the growing trend of remote health care technology. Rosen, A. (2019), This robot makes sure you remember to take your pills. CUTTING EDGE | MAGAZINE, available at: https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2019/03/29/this-robot-makes-sure-you-remember-take-your-pills/.
2. (Introducing a new technology and a new way of remote health care) Telemedicine, an emerging technology, enables remote medical consultations through video conferencing or digital imaging systems, fostering coordination and collaboration in diagnosing and treating diseases. A three-tier pervasive telemedicine system utilizes a wireless body area network (WBAN) for continuous healthcare monitoring, with users obtaining vital signals in Tier 1 and transmitting them to healthcare providers in Tier 3 through personal gateways (Tier 2), such as smartphones. Tiers 1 and 2 serve as the client side, providing mobile health (mHealth) services, while Tier 3 represents the server side. Shuwandy, M. L., Zaidan, B. B., Zaidan, A. A., & Albahri, A. S. (2019). Sensor-based mHealth authentication for real-time remote healthcare monitoring system: A multilayer systematic review. Journal of medical systems, 43, 1-30.
3. (Potential challenges raised by telemonitoring technology) Issues include the absence of suitable sensors, concerns about system size and weight, identification of invalid data, battery life, bandwidth, network coverage, and data transmission costs. Adoption challenges are highlighted, such as privacy concerns and potential insurance-related issues. Cultural adjustments in healthcare organizations and the need for new data analysis methods are also mentioned. Nangalia, V., Prytherch, D. R., & Smith, G. B. (2010). Health technology assessment review: Remote monitoring of vital signs-current status and future challenges. Critical Care, 14, 1-8.
4. (Possible design ideas and the drawbacks in remote health-care technology) Several related work and design techniques have been presented. Zhou, B., Wu, K., Lv, P., Wang, J., Chen, G., Ji, B.& Liu, S. (2018). A new remote health-care system based on moving robot intended for the elderly at home. Journal of healthcare engineering, 2018. Available at: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jhe/2018/4949863/.
5. (Ethical concerns regarding telehealth) The paper discusses challenges related to integrating telehealth into healthcare systems. Concerns about data protection and privacy are raised due to increased access to sensitive patient data. Ethical issues arise regarding patient autonomy and the potential substitution of physical presence in healthcare. Botrugno, C. (2019). Towards an ethics for telehealth. Nursing ethics, 26(2), 357-367.
6. (Collaborative Robot for Remote Dementia Care in Home) This paper shows a teleoperation of a remote care robot at home. This robot is designed for elderly people with dementia. Care givers can use this robot to provide care remotely. They can monitor the patient via robot vision, and control the robot arm via motion tracking. For instance, they can grab medicine and pills for the patient. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9116811/authors#authors
7. (Human-Robot Interaction with the Elderly) Some researchers conducted an experiment of replacing a human care giver with a humanoid care robot for 10 weeks. The conclusion is that the elderly are willing to interact with the robot, but they think that the robot cannot replace a human care giver because of techniqual issues, lacking warmth, acceptance, and unexpected situations. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3313831.3376402
8. (Patient Monitoring and Medicine Dispenser Robot) This robot is an assistive medical robot for doctors to take care of patients remotely. It combines the pill dispensing and patient monitoring. Doctors can set the prescription for patients. The robot will then remind patients to take pills at required time. It will at the same time recored the patient's temperature via infrared and store it in a database for further analysis. https://pubs.aip.org/aip/acp/article/2494/1/030004/2827068/Patient-monitoring-and-medicine-dispenser-robot