The Robot Nurse is an innovative healthcare assistant designed to support hospital staff by automating essential tasks such as cleaning, transporting supplies, and monitoring patients. With hospitals facing staff shortages and heavy workloads, providing quality patient care can be challenging. Our robot nurse helps solve these problems by reducing workload, improving hygiene, and allowing healthcare workers to focus on what truly matters, which is caring for patients. Equipped with smart technology and advanced features, it efficiently handles essential tasks, making hospital operations smoother and more effective.
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Care Squad
Innovation Fest 2025
About Care Squad
UN SUSTAINABILITY DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Empowered and Driven:
Delivering Solutions for Global Issues
Good Health and Wellbeing- The aim of this goal is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being to all, and our robot nurse perfectly aligns with this vision. One of it’s key functions is to automate cleaning tasks, which helps to maintain hygiene standards and significantly reduces the risk of infection transmission in healthcare settings. By ensuring a consistently clean and safe environment, our robot nurse supports the prevention of infections, and in doing so contributes to improved health outcomes and overall well-being.
Decent Work and Economic Growth- The aim of this goal is encouraging long-term economic growth, along with decent work opportunities for everyone. Our robot nurse supports this goal by increasing healthcare efficiency and reducing staff workload and burnout. By automating essential tasks such as cleaning, transporting supplies, and monitoring patients, the robot nurse allows healthcare professionals to focus more on crucial tasks, resulting in a more productive and sustainable healthcare environment. This not only makes staff jobs easier but also produces a healthcare system that runs more smoothly, contributing to economic growth.
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure- The aim of this goal is to improve infrastructure, encouraging sustainable industries, and promote new ideas and technologies. Our robot nurse contributes to this using advanced technology to upgrade healthcare systems. Through the automation of essential tasks, the robot nurse helps to modernise healthcare environments, making them more efficient and sustainable. By supporting innovation in healthcare operations and improving infrastructure, our robot nurse plays a key role in transforming healthcare for the future, making it smarter and more adaptable.
THE STORY BEGAN
DESIGN STORY
Challenges
• Staff shortages and burnout- many healthcare facilities are understaffed causing existing workers to be overworked, leading them to be stressed and burned out. • Hygiene and infection control- due to high patient turnover and being in a shared environment, preventing the spread of infections is a large struggle for hospitals and care facilities. • Transporting supplies and medical equipment- having the nurses and staff spend valuable time moving supplies/ equipment around is extremely inefficient. • Limited patient monitoring- due to staff shortages, patients are not always able to have staff around at all times especially in understaffed wards or on night shifts. • Time management and efficiency- a great amount of time is lost on non-medical repetitive tasks. e.g. •Support in long-term care facilities (elderly patients who require more consistent care and lower level support tasks which can be time consuming).
Solution
Our robot can solve the problem of staff shortages and burnout by handling routine tasks like cleaning, transporting supplies and basic patient monitoring, which can reduce the workload for staff and allow them to focus more on critical care. Our robot can also keep health and safety standards making them better for healthcare facilities as it automates regular cleaning and disinfection helping maintain a consistently hygienic environment and reduce risks of spread of infection. Our robot nurse has the ability to efficiently transport medical supplies and equipment which can save time for staff and improve workflow in busy healthcare environments. Our robot also supports remote patient monitoring for e.g. it can alert staff if a patient needs attention which increases safety and response. Our robot also provides a solution for time management and efficiency as automation helps streamline day-to-day operations, meaning more efficient operations in hospitals and healthcare facilities and overall better care can be provided. For support in long-term care facilities our robot can help assist with regular room cleaning, delivering supplies into the rooms and monitoring patients for any alerts (e.g. fall detection), which allows for more consistent care and less dependability on the available human staff.
Use Case
The purpose of our project is to design and build a robot nurse that can assist in hospital and healthcare environments by automating the essential but time-consuming tasks. In these busy care environments, the workers are often overwhelmed with responsibilities such as maintaining hygiene, moving supplies around, and monitoring patients. Our robot nurse will help solve this problem by taking over these day-to-day tasks, reduce the staff workload and allowing them to focus on more critical patient care. It will also help to maintain a cleaner and safer environment, which is especially important for preventing the spread of infections. Overall, we've designed our robot nurse to improve efficiency, support staff and help create a smarter, more reliable healthcare system.
TECHNOLOGIES
List of Essential Tools and Technologies
THE PROCESS
PROTOTYPE DESIGN
Our initial prototype includes a vacuum system with a vacuum bag and storage container, a camera for basic monitoring, wheels for mobility, ultrasonic sensors for obstacle detection, a servo motor for precise positioning, and a DC motor or movement and control. We chose to add these features as they give the robot the ability to address key challenges faced in hospital and care environments. The vacuum and storage system allows our robot to assist with cleaning and maintaining hygiene, which is essential in health and infection control. The wheels and motors enable the robot to navigate spaces efficiently, while the ultrasonic sensors help to avoid obstacles. The camera allows basic remote monitoring, helping to enhance patient safety. We have prioritised these features as they are the most essential for supporting healthcare staff and with creating a safer and more efficient environment. This first prototype serves as a starting point for building and testing a fully functioning robot nurse in the future.
Online Marketing
Creative agency
Web development
PLEDGE
Impact on the market
The market for medical service robots is growing rapidly, driven by advancements in healthcare technology. In the UK, the market is expected to reach a projected revenue of $204.7 million by 2030, a significant increase from the current estimated $90-$100 million. This growth highlights a strong opportunity for our product to succeed. Our robot nurse fits into this expanding market by meeting the rising demand for smart, automated solutions in healthcare settings. Competitors such as Intuitive Surgical, Medrobotics, Aethon, Aesynt, Esko Bionics and Xenex Technolgies have developed effective solutions in areas like surgical assistance, transport, and disinfection. However, most of these products are single-purpose. What sets our product apart is its multi-functional design, combining cleaning, supply transport, and patient monitoring all into one device. This gives us a competitive advantage by introducing a more versatile and cost-effective solution into the market, making it especially appealing to hospitals and care facilities aiming to enhance both safety and operational efficiency without the need to deploy multiple different robots from various companies.
RESULTS
FINAL PRODUCT
The process of reaching our final product included several steps, starting from the planning and designing stage and ending with building and testing our prototype. Firstly, we identified the primary needs in modern healthcare environments, particularly the growing demand for smart, automated solutions to improve efficiency and safety. With this in mind, we decided our solution was to create a multi-functional robot that combines features such as cleaning, transporting supplies and patient monitoring into a single device.
Planning and Prototyping
We used Tinkercad as the primary tool for creating 3D models and testing both the circuit design and prototype. This allowed us to visualise and improve the robots structure, making sure all the parts fit together perfectly. Tinkercad’s simulation feature helped us test the code and circuit before physically building the prototype. We also used Microsoft Word to document the list of components required for our project, keeping track of all hardware and software elements.
Hardware and Tools
For the hardware , we used several key components to bring our robot nurse design to life. We used an Arduino as the central controller, with a range of additional hardware including 6 DC motors for movement, 2 relays for device control, and a breadboard for circuit prototyping. A L298N motor driver was used to run the motors efficiently, while a pushbutton was included so users can interact with the robot . We also integrated an Arduino Uno expansion board (Arduino UNO R3, MEGA Sensor Expansion Board V5.0) to increase functionality.
For sensors and functionality, we used an ultrasonic sensor for obstacle detection and a line tracking module for following predefined paths. We also added a Bluetooth module for remote communication and control. The robot’s hardware also includes wires for pins, 10k resistors, and various other components such as brushes for the vacuum system, and a bin container for collecting debris. Some of these parts, including the medicine container and the vacuum bin container, were 3D printed, which helped with customisation and ensured a precise fit.
Software Tools and Programming
The software development for our robot nurse involved writing code in C++ using the Arduino IDE. This programming language allowed us to control the robots hardware, including the sensors, motors, and bluetooth for remote communication. The code made sure all parts worked together smoothly, so the robot could perform its tasks reliably and efficiently.
Assembling our Robot Nurse and Testing
We also have used parts from a car kit, including wheels, boards and screws to assemble the robots mobility system. Once we had the hardware set up and the coding was implemented, we tested the robot and made improvements as needed. We went through multiple rounds of testing and tweaking to make sure everything worked well. The combination of multiple tools like Tinkercad for design, Arduino for programming, and 3D printing for custom parts helped us to efficiently build and test our robot nurse, quickly and effectively.
Overall, the process involved a mix of hardware, software, and design tools to develop a cost-effective, versatile, and functional robot nurse. By combining cleaning, transporting supplies, and patient monitoring all into one device, we have created a solution that reduces the need for multiple single-purpose robots, making it a more efficient and practical choice for healthcare settings.
