ABB opened a health-care research hub on the Texas Medical Center (TMC) campus in Houston earlier this month.

This is now show-casing a number of concept technologies, including a mobile YuMi robot, designed to assist medical and laboratory staff in hospitals.

The dual-arm YuMi will be able to navigate its way around its human co-workers autonomously, while learning to find different routes from one location to another.

It has the potential to undertake a wide range of repetitive and time-consuming tasks, including the preparation of medicines, loading and unloading centrifuges, pipetting and handling liquids, and picking up and sorting test tubes.

The Healthcare Hub is housed in the TMC Innovation Institute, which fosters collaboration to accelerate the development and prototyping of breakthrough medical technology.

ABB will develop robots that can carry out repetitive, delicate and mundane processes, leaving skilled medical and laboratory staff free to undertake more-valuable roles — and ultimately treat more patients.

ABB (www.new.abb.com) analysis shows that repetitive tasks could be completed up to 50% faster with automation, with the added benefit that robots can work 24hr a day.

Sami Atiya, president of ABB’s Robotics and Discrete Automation business, said: “The health-care sector is undergoing a significant transformation as the diagnosis and treatment of disease advances, while coping with an ageing population, increasing costs and a world-wide shortage of medical staff.

"With our new health-care R&D hub at the TMC, we are aiming to develop answers to these challenges — together with
the best minds in academia, science and medicine.”