When faced with an increase of patients needing access to healthcare services and a population that must be quarantined or shelter in place, the healthcare, public safety, and economic structures face challenges. Robotic technologies are essentially programmable, and in the current crisis, robotic systems have been modified and implemented to some degree for transportation, logistics, and disinfection. Robotic technology for healthcare, unlike many strict software applications, is designed to communicate with the physical world. 

AI and robotic technology can help with pandemic response in a variety of ways. There is also a lot of interest in leveraging technologies like machine learning, data science, and automation in the research and development leading up to the vaccine’s development, manufacturing, and distribution supply chain. However, robotic systems can provide hospital personnel with tools to safely and efficiently manage patients remotely. Patients can also benefit from robotic systems because they have an interface with the outside world, which can include family and friends on the one hand, and health care practitioners on the other. Robots equipped with touchless sensors for vital signs, for example, can take vital measurements from patients. If it can perform certain patient management functions (e.g., changing IV bags, handling a ventilator) without needing a caregiver to enter and exit the room, robotics can improve the system’s capability. These could necessitate semi-autonomous mobile manipulation with shared control, allowing Hospital Clinical Personnel (HCP) to perform a variety of tasks without having to reach the patient space. Inside healthcare facilities, they can also perform a variety of supply chain functions. For example, we can ensure that special equipment and medicine get delivered just on time to patients and procedure rooms.

Many of the robotic technology for healthcare that would be most effective in a pandemic would require contact with humans, including those tasked with overseeing what the robots are intended to do and those who may actually be in the environment or whom the robot is attempting to assist. These would not be expert programmers or computer scientists with a Ph.D. Many would have little or no technological experience, aside from a working knowledge of smartphones and social media applications. They must, however, interact with and comply with the structures without being threatened.  Mutual confidence and a common understanding between robotic systems and human users are critical. The humans must understand what the robot will do and have some confidence that it is doing it. The robot must “understand” what the human expects it to do and have some reasonable expectation of how the human will respond. It must be able to react appropriately if the human does something unexpected.