Robotic Emergency Medical Technician

The Salisbury Robotics Lab at Stanford is developing a robotic Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). After performing visual and verbal inspection its initial responsibility will be to measure the vital signs of the patient, such as pulse, blood pressure, respiration, and temperature, as well as performing ultrasonic and electrocardiogram examinations. As these actions require the robot to skillfully touch the patient, it is vital for it to be able to detect, characterize, control the interaction forces and behave appropriately during contact. Force and acceleration measurements will be used to alert the robot to contact and enable it to determine contact status and properties in real time. This will be done by extending the active robotic touch perception techniques developed in the lab that exploit classical techniques in System Identification and Machine Learning. Our results will enable the robot to tell by feeling if it has contacted soft tissue (muscle, fatty tissue, swellings, etc.), a bony area (elbow, rib, skull, etc.), or a non-human object (wheelchair, table, etc.). This information will also help modulate the robot's interaction forces and firmness during these procedures.