PRE2015 4 Groep4

Group 4 members

• (Tim) T.P. Peereboom 0783677
• (Marleen) M.J.W. Verhagen 0810317
• (Willeke) J.C. van Liempt 0895980
• (Victor) V.T.T. Lam 0857216
• (Huub) H.W.J. van Rijn 0903068

Introduction

(victor draft idea): In large hospitals, elderly patients and visitors may have trouble reading or understanding the navigation signs. Therefore they may go to the information desk to request help from human caregivers. A more efficient alternative could be: robots that guide elderly patients/visitors safely to their destination in the hospital. In this way, human caregivers can have their hands free to help elderly with more serious problems that robots cannot solve, like helping elderly stand up when they fell over. Robots can guide elderly easily to their destination, when a map of the hospital is programmed into the robot. Even if the patient doesn't know what to do or where to go to, the robot gives clear instructions for example through touchscreen or speakers.

User centred

Scenario

An old man wants to visit his wife in the hospital. Due to the abbreviations of locations and his hunchback, he is having trouble with reading the signage, so he asks for help at the information desk. Here he is directed to a guiding robot. This robot carries a touch screen on eye level which asks the user to press "start". The man presses start and the robot asks him to put on the smart bracelet. This question is also displayed on the screen so people with hearing problems can understand the instructions too. The old man puts on the bracelet and presses "proceed". Now the robot asks where the man wants to go and the robot uses voice-recognition to indentify the user's destination. The robot guides the man trough the hospital to his destination. Because of the smart bracelet the robot can keep track of the distance between the user and the robot. When the distance gets too big, the robot will adjust its speed. When arrived at the destination the robot will ask the user if the desired location is reached. If so, the robot will leave the user. When the user wants to leave the hospital again, he can summon one using his smart bracelet. When a robot is finished with a guiding task, it will check if there are other people trying to summon a robot, otherwise it will go back to its base and recharge.

Requirements

Functional requirements

• The robot has to be able to reach each possible destination. Therefore it should be able to open doors and use elevators.
• It should be easy for a patient to give the desired destination to the robot.
• The robot should be able to calculate the optimal route to the destination.
• It should be clear for the patient that the robot is guiding the patient to the destination.
• It should be easy to follow the robot.
• The robot has to be able to detect if the patient is really following the robot.

Non-functional requirements

• The robot has to be able to avoid collisions.
• The patient should feel comfortable near the robot. Interaction with the robot should feel natural.
• The robot should have a low failure rate. It should work most of the time.
• If the robot stops working or in case of emergency, then it should be possible for the patient to contact help.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are those who are involved in the development of the system. The two main stakeholders are the technology developers and the hospitals. The hospital can be separated into different stakeholders: the workers (nurses, doctors and receptionists), visitors, the board of the hospital and the patients. The primary stakeholders are the visitors, workers and developers. Secondary stakeholders are the government, the board and patients. Collaboration between developers, users and workers is needed. The influence of patients that are hospitalised must be considered, they must not experience nuisance with the use of the technology in the hallways.

User needs

Given that the user space is a hospital environment, a user would like to be treated with care. Therefor we stated a few things as necessary for the user. First of all the robot needs to behave in a friendly way. This means its way of communicating with the user should be as neutral as possible, such that the user feels at ease with the robot. Secondly, the robot should be able to adjust its speed to the needs of the user. For instance, younger people tend to be quicker by foot than elderly. The route calculated should be as safe and passable for the user as possible, with efficiency as second priority such that it does not take longer than necessary to reach the user's goal. Another thing the user needs is a way to communicate to a human if needed, think of situations like the robot being lost together with the user, it needs to be able to tell this to a human operator such that the user can be helped.

USE-aspects

The impact of the guiding robot on the USE aspects is explained here.

Users

The users of the new guiding robot are generally elderly people who have trouble with finding the way in the hospital. Without this robot they would have to ask employees to guide them. Employees may not have time to guide the elderly all the way to the destination. So elderly can still get lost if they don't fully understand the intructions of the employees. They could come too late to an appointment due to this. It is important that the users feel comfortable near the robot. Users may otherwise refuse to let the robot guide them.

Society and enterprise

The robot can help patients who have trouble with finding the way to arrive in time. Therefore less patients would arrive too late to an appointiment. This may make the hospital more efficient and could reduce costs. However the robot should be able to avoid obstacles. Other people in the hospital should not be hindered by the robot.

Tasks and approach (old)

In order to test the design and system of the guiding robot, we had two possibilities: use the real robot Amigo or make a simulation. The 3D simulation is chosen, since it would be a more easy suitable way to test than in a real hospital. The simulation will be a first person 3D game where the player will be the test subject. The player is looking through the eyes of an elderly patient or visitor in a hospital.

For making the simulation, the following aspects have to be considered:

1. Unity/Blender The simulationgame will be done in Unity and the 3d models (hospital as environment and character as user) will be made in Blender

2. Catharina hospital map A real hospital map is used for the simulation. The Catharina hospital is prefered since it is close to the TU/e in case tests have to be performed. The 3D environment will be modeled after this map as well

3. Eindhoven Airport robot Literature study and research about the Eindhoven airport will be done to find the flaws of the airport guiding robots, so they can be avoided in the design

4. Interaction The player (user) 'speaks' by inputting a certain sentence and the robot should respond accordingly and correctly through the speakers.

5. Virtual bracelet A 3d model of the bracelet will be made that the character (user) can put on.

6. Same starting point and same destination For now, each simulation will be performed with the same start and end. Later on more starting and destinations may be added.

7. Obstacle avoidance Whenever the robot notices something hinders its way, it should avoid it or move around it.

8. Distance between user and robot (keeping track) Robot constantly checks distance between user and robot (radius). In case distance (radius) is too large, the robot waits or comes to the user. This keeping track of the user can be done with smart bracelets. The robot sends a signal to the bracelet, and the bracelet sends a signal back to the robot. The robot measures the time between sending and receiving and the distance can be calculated by multiplying speed of signal and time.

9. Malfunction/call human In case the robot malfunctions, there should be an alternative for example calling a human caregiver or another well functioning robot.

10. Touchpad and speaker A touchpad and speaker from the robot are used to give instruction to (for example about putting on the bracelet) and have a conversation with the user

11. App for touchpad A program has to be written that allows the user to use the touchpad

12. Survey before/during/after test (feedback) To get feedback about the design and system. A few aspects that can be asked are comfort, ease of use, time-efficiency etc.

13. Elevators in hospital During the guiding the robot has to make use of elevators in case switching between different floors is necessary

14. Navigation system/structure of signage The usual navigation signs of a real hospital will be implemented in the following way. Locations in the hospital where a navigation sign is placed is considered as a node. The hallway that is referred by that sign is considered as a branch. The main entrance is the root and each node is connected to child nodes through branches. The different departments are the so-called 'leafs'. For example, the node 'Main entrance' has a navigation sign that tells the visitor to go to the left hallway (branch) for routes 1-50 and go to the right hallway (branch) for routes 51-100. At the end of these two hallways are again signs (child nodes) that have other hallways (subbranches) connected to it. The sign at the end of the left hallway tells the visitor to go to the left subhallway (subbranch) for routes 1-25 and the right subhallway (subbranch) for routes 26-50. The sign at the end of the right hallway tells the visitor to go to the left or right subhallway (subbranch) for routes 51-74 and 75-100 respectively.

Tasks and approach (new)

Smart bracelet

The smart bracelet is worn on the user's wrist. In this way the robot can keep track of the distance radius between the user and the robot. The basic idea of the bracelet is as follows: the robot sends a signal to the smart bracelet and the robot starts the timer. The smart bracelet receives the signal and immediately sends a signal back to the robot. The robot receives the signal and stops the timer. The timer indicates the time interval between the robot sending and receiving the signal. However, this timer is twice as much as the actual travel time. Hence this time has to be divided by 2. The distance radius between the user and robot can be calculated as follows: x=v*t/2, where x is the distance radius between the user and robot, v is the travelling speed of the signal, t is the time between the robot sending and receiving the signal, the factor 1/2 is for correcting the double travelling time.

Literature research has to be performed to find out which electronic components are necessary and which kind of signal we want to use (for example light, (ultra)sound, wifi, infrared, however light and sound are direction dependent and reflect as well).

An example could be the myRIO device that uses wifi as signal and use it in the MATLAB environment. MATLAB starts a timer when sending a signal to the myRIO. The myRIO receives this signal and immediately sends a signal back to MATLAB. MATLAB stops the timer when receiving the signal and the elapsed time between MATLAB sending and receiving the signal is measured. The actual travel time is half of the measured time, since the measured time is twice as large (back and forth).

In order to find out the travelling speed of the signal, reference measurements ('eiken' or 'eikpunten' in dutch) have to be performed as follows: 10 time intervals are measured between the robot sending and receiving the signal with 10 known distances between robot and smart bracelet. The traveling speed v is obtained by v=x/t, where t is half the measured time or x is the double distance. These speeds can be plotted and the average speed can be used for new real future measurements

Robot

A decision has to be made between using real robots (for example the amigo or a robocup robot) or building our own robot with an arduino, motor, battery, wheels, webcam, sensors and platform. We decided to choose for a robocup robot for the following reasons:

• It is more robust than the amigo; it has bumpers
• navigation is already implemented, we need a hospital map
• obstacle avoidance is already implemented, since the robocup robots avoid each other when they play football. We have to define what is an obstacle and what is not.

What still has to be implemented by us are:

• Tracking of the user by using a smart bracelet and calculate time between sending and receiving
• interaction/conversation between robot and user. Robot gives instructions through speaker and touchscreen. In case elderly stops following the robot, because he/she stops walking or walks into another direction, the robot should communicate with the user or information desk, so that a human caregiver can continue guiding the user..

Actions robot should take in case of malfunctions It could happen that the robot has electrical problems, wifi problems and/or mechanical problems, like broken sensor, broken link wifi connection, broken motors. Then the robot should call another robot or call the information desk for human caregivers so that they can continue guiding the user.

Planning (old)

week 2

• Literature study: Marleen, Willeke
• USE-aspects: Huub, Tim
• Define objectives: Victor

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week 3

• Create 3 different hospital map: Willeke, Tim
• Describe app interface: Huub
• Create 3 scenarios: Victor
• Describe state-of-the-art guiding robots: Marleen

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week 4

• Start with Blender: Victor, Marleen
• Start with app: Huub
• What should robot do in case of emergency/malfunction: Willeke
• Rethink requirements
• Describe smart bracelet: Tim

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week 5

• Finish map in Blender: Victor, Marleen
• Continue app: Huub
• Continue wiki: Willeke, Tim
• Evaluation point

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week 6

• Finish characters in Blender: Victor, Marleen
• Finish app: Huub
• Continue wiki: Willeke, Tim

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week 7

• Continue Blender: Victor, Huub, Marleen
• Continue wiki: Willeke, Tim

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week 8

• Simulation Blender: Victor, Huub
• Start on presentation: Willeke
• Continue wiki: Marleen, Tim

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week 9

• Buffer

Objectives

Objectives of systems

• Guiding elderly patients and visitors of a hospital safely, comfortably and quickly to their destination
• Reducing amount of human caregivers who guide patients and visitors, so they can have their hands free to help patients with more serious problems
• Keeping accompany with lonely elderly, so they can have someone to interact with and have a conversation with
• Keeping track of the user
• Avoid obstacles
• Provide a suitable solution in case the robot malfunctions
• Using touchpad with app and speakers in order to communicate with the user or to give instructions to the user

Objectives of simulation

• Putting our design to the test and verify our expectations
• Using test results to improve the system