(GH-7 medical droid shown above from Revenge of the Sith)
Star Wars fans know all too well that where there are lightsabers and blasters, there’s bound to be a few injuries. Luckily, there are plenty of droid nurses and medics to patch up our favorite characters. Their bedside manner might not be as human as we’re used to seeing via “Grey’s Anatomy” or “House” but they do a decent job in everything from giving Jedi new arms to delivering babies.
So it’s no surprise that medic droids, and R2-D2 for that matter, have become the inspiration to engineers at the University of Warwick who are helping to design “R2-D2″-type robo nurses for a program called i-WARD, which could be in UK hospitals by 2020.
The robots would be responsible for such tasks as “leading a patient to a ward, monitoring security surveillance, delivering drugs to a doctor and cleaning a floor.” The robots would also be able to communicate with one another.
Professor Vinesh Raja, Professor Fellow of Informatics, at the university’s International Manufacturing Centre, says, “A key problem we are working on is what would happen when you put a robot in the hospital corridor and children mistake it for a toy and gather round? The robot would have sensors to detect any obstacles and would radio for help.”
The professor admits to being a big fan of sci-fi movies. “I have been involved in virtual reality for a number of years. You watch a film like Star Wars and think: ‘How can I make this a reality?’”
Read the full article here:
Warwick University robo nurses straight from ‘Star Wards’
