Development of an Autonomous Mobile Health Monitoring System for Medical Workers with High Volume Cases

Mobile health care monitoring system have the capacity to provide critical assistance in areas of medical care, especially in situations where there are limited number of health workers needed to attend to patients. This project describes the development of a mobile health care monitoring system capable of monitoring the heart rate of patients and recording this information electronically. The system will provide much needed relief for medical workers with high volume cases. The system was constructed using a mobile robot capable of traversing rugged terrain, a motor shield, a Global Positioning System (GPS) shield for autonomous navigation, an ultrasound sensor for obstacle avoidance, and a heart rate sensor for measuring patient heart rate. The mobile system was able to successfully avoid obstacles and navigate to the predetermined locations of three hospital beds and obtain the heart rate of three patients. Future improvements to the system include the addition of wireless capability so patient data can be transmitted wirelessly to physician’s PC, incorporation of speech capability to enhance interaction between robot and patient and addition of more sensors to measure other vital signs such as blood glucose.