Design and Evaluation of a Motorized Robotic Bed Mover With Omnidirectional Mobility for Patient Transportation.

Patient transportation in hospitals faces many challenges, including the limited manpower, work-related injuries, and low efficiency of current bed pushing methods. This paper presents a new motorized robotic bed mover with omnidirectional mobility to address this problem. This device is composed of an omnidirectional mobility unit, a force sensing-based human-machine interface, and control hardware with batteries and electronics. The proposed bed mover can be attached to the bottom of a manual hospital stretcher, transforming it into a powered omnidirectional bed (OmniBed) that can be used only by one person. The function of the OmniBed is compared with that of a conventional powered bed, which only provides forward assistance with a fifth powered wheel. We perform a pilot study with 14 subjects to evaluate the performance of this OmniBed and benefits for hospital application. The experimental results show that the OmniBed can half the manpower while decreasing back muscle activities, revealing the potential health benefits for older staffs. The OmniBed also shows the promising signs of high precision and handling in small spaces with its one-step "parallel-parking" ability. This device is more ergonomic, more effective, and safer than the conventional powered bed.