Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
R2D2's Friend TUG: Hospital Robot By Aethon
Aethon's TUG robots look like little R2D2 on Jabba's sail barge, and are just as helpful. Hopefully not fomenting insurrection or aiding escapes by hospital patients, though.
(Aethon TUG Robot delivery in hospitals)
Meet the Tugs - a team of 27 robots now zooming around the hallways of the new University of California, San Francisco hospital at Mission Bay. They look a bit like R2D2, dragging a platform around behind them. Instead of drones, think of them more as little flatbed trucks, ferrying carts of stuff around the vast hospital complex - food, linens, medications, medical waste and garbage. And they do it more efficiently than humans."This one is going up to one of the floors. It's carrying meals that were ordered in probably the last 20 minutes," said Dan Henroid, who is in charge of this elite fleet, as he pointed to a robot motoring by him.
Henroid, who is also director of nutrition and food services for the USCF Medical Center, says each Tug travels about 35 miles each day. Over the past year, they have made more than 157,000 trips through the hospital. Henroid said no one in the hospital has lost a job to the robots. UCSF was in the midst of a hiring spree for the new hospital, and the Tugs allowed him to hire about 30 fewer workers than he would have otherwise.
He added that the robots are really just carting things from one point to another, something most humans would not find particularly rewarding. "The Tug has a job to do, and it's sort of a thankless job. So, I think, better to have a robot doing it, perhaps, than a human."
Speaking as someone who put himself through college as a stockkeeper in a large university hospital, I can tell you that I didn't get bored of doing it, and it was good job to have. But who can resist R2 in the 1983 movie Return of the Jedi?
(R2D2 serves drinks on Jabba's sail barge)
Via PhysOrg; see also Aethon's TUG robot site.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/20/2016)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931.
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.' - Rog Philips, 1950.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
