ABB has on the campus of the Texas Medical Center (TMC) in Houston, Texas, their first global Health Care Hub opened, which especially the Health research dedicates. At the opening, a number of technology concepts were presented, including a mobile "Yumi" -Robot, which is designed to support medical and laboratory professionals with laboratory work and logistical tasks in the hospital.

Recurring, time-consuming work

The two-armed mobile Yumi will be able to recognize its human colleagues independently and find its way around them. He will learn to take different paths from one place to another. The Robot can potentially take on a wide range of recurring and time-consuming tasks, including preparing medication, loading and unloading centrifuges, pipetting, handling liquids and picking up and sorting test tubes.

Adaptive exoskeleton for the stroke patient

Similarly, the mobile Yumi could also be used in hospitals for a variety of logistics tasks: it could dose drugs, take them to where they are needed in the hospital, provide medical supplies to hospital staff, or deliver bedding directly to patients' rooms.

Release qualified personnel

Am TMC Innovation Institute ABB robots are developed that are able to perform recurring, filigree and less demanding tasks. This enables highly qualified medical professionals and laboratory staff to concentrate on more demanding tasks, which ultimately means that more patients can be treated. As analyzes by ABB show, recurring tasks can be completed by automation up to 50% faster than with current manual processes. Robots can also be in use 24 hours a day.

“The healthcare sector is facing major challenges as disease diagnosis and treatment options improve, but at the same time the population is aging and there is an increasing shortage of medical professionals. With our new Health Care Hub at TMC, we want to develop answers to these challenges together with the best minds from research, science and medicine,” said Sami Atiya, head of the business area Robotic and manufacturing automation at ABB.

Silicone additive manufacturing of bio-inspired heart valves

"Our experience in the fields industrial robotics and collaborative robotics is a strong starting point to create flexible automation solutions for the healthcare sector. Together with our partners at the TMC, we will develop pioneering robotics solutions. We are working to reduce the number of manual steps that medical professionals have to perform, improve the precision of laboratory work, and thus increase patient satisfaction and ultimately patient safety. ”

Common, medical laboratory tasks

In addition, ABB presented on Health Care Hub Technologies such as Yumi robots that could help with centrifuging and handling test tubes, or an IRB 1200 robot that transfers liquids in a pipetting application. All of these common medical laboratory tasks could be supported by robot-based automation by combining constant performance with greater flexibility and continuous operation. This enables the throughput and quality to be increased while at the same time reducing costs.

The TMC is the largest Medical city the world and has first-class capacities for research collaborations. The TMC institutions include some of the world's leading companies and hospitals. ABB's new Health Care Hub, spanning 500 m², will be housed in the TMC Innovation Institute. The state-of-the-art hub promotes collaboration between medicine and cutting-edge technology and brings start-ups together with pioneers from science and leading technology companies to accelerate the development of pioneering medical technology and the construction of corresponding prototypes.

DC motor and other drives for medical technology

The robot Automation healthcare offers great opportunities for future growth. According to an internal study by ABB, the global market is expected to grow to almost 2025 medical robots for non-operative applications by 60.000. The market will almost quadruple compared to 2018.

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