ABSTRACT
This contribution describes some activities promoted by a group of roboticists from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and Università di Pisa in response to the pandemic. In particular, a “do-it-yourself” (DIY) open-source service and related hardware/products will be illustrated to help combat some consequences of the Covid 19 emergency. The project was born to facilitate communication between patients isolated in Covid 19 hospitals’ ward and their relatives. The teleoperated robot named LHF Connect can move autonomously around the hospital. Once it arrives at each patient's bed, it can provide a video call between patients and their relatives or friends outside the isolated hospital ward. In this scenario, the robot is piloted by a volunteer operator working from home or in a safe room inside the hospital. The teleoperator will guide LHF Connect toward each patient's bed using a laptop or a smartphone. LHF Connect is an open-source platform that leverages mature robotics technologies designed to be easily reproducible even in extreme conditions such as lockdown situations. The platform was reproduced during the first pandemic outbreak in Europe by other people independently, and it has been tested by medical staff in real scenarios and isolated Covid 19 departments. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
This contribution describes a case study of a "do-it-yourself" (DIY) opensource service and related product to help combating the COVID-19 emergency. It illustrates the birth of LHF Connect, a project designed to facilitate communication between patients isolated in COVID-19 hospitals' ward and their relatives. LHF Connect is a teleoperated robot that can move in autonomy around the hospital. A User Centered Design approach, methods and specific tools helped in managing crucial steps of the design process such as i) the collection of needs coming from the context, stakeholders and end-users;ii) defining the service blueprint;iii) imagining finishing concepts;and iv) managing the communication activities. The initiative has been promoted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers (mainly roboticists with the help of specific competences coming from Design discipline). © 2020 Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. All rights reserved.