Humanoid robots are set to make
their debut in Italian hospitals, medical sources said on
Wednesday.
A two-to-three-year pilot scheme is set to start at the
hospital in san Giovanni Rotondo near Foggia, which was
originally built thanks to St Padre Pio.
It will then be extended to other Italian hospitals, as well
as French ones, the sources said.
One robot, Pepper, will control wards, alerting doctors to
emergencies.
Another, R1, will 'dialogue' with patients to gauge their
emotions and make the first diagnoses.
"We decided to trial both robots because they have different
characteristics: R1 is a research robot, while Pepper is already
a commercial robot," said Francesco Puja from Konica Minolta's
Rome lab.
R1 was created thanks to collaboration between the Italian
Institute of Technology (IIT) with Japan's Konica Minolta, which
is specialised in artificial intelligence.
Pepper is produced by another Japanese company, Softbank.
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