As hospital emergency wait times continue to increase in Canada, Professor Goldie Nejat (MIE) believes machine intelligence and robotics can play a key role in easing the strain by streamlining the delivery of health care.
In July, two identical semi-humanoid robots named Pepper arrived in Nejat’s Autonomous Systems and Biomechatronics Lab. Standing about four feet high, each Pepper is equipped with four microphones, two HD cameras and a 3D depth sensor, all of which enable the robot to detect and respond to voices and body language.
Nejat and her team are now working to design Pepper’s ‘brain’ — the algorithms that govern how the robot will interact with humans. Their ultimate goal is to deploy Peppers in hospital settings to help minimize emergency wait times by automating data intake, monitoring the conditions of patients and providing companionship in hospital rooms.
Full article at: U of T Engineering News