This is the problem we have been developing Drivey to tackle. Drivey is Done Robotics' autonomous logistics robot, designed to pick up and transport equipment that hospitals already use. Instead of requiring goods to be transferred into robot-specific containers, Drivey connects directly to existing trolleys and transports them to where they need to go. Depending on the use case, that can mean individual trolleys, trains of carts and hospital beds.
But developing a robot for hospitals creates an obvious challenge: at some point, you have to leave the controlled environment behind. A hospital corridor is not a test track. People, equipment and traffic are constantly moving, and the robot needs to adapt to what happens around it.
At Östra Sjukhuset in Gothenburg, Drivey recently got the chance to do exactly that.
From development environment to hospital corridor
During the pilot, Drivey's task was to transport cleaning trolleys between the hospital's logistics and washing areas. The task itself was straightforward; the environment was not. Drivey shared the corridors with patients, staff, beds and other trolleys while dealing with intersections, automatic doors and temporary obstacles along its route.
Drivey completed the transport route and navigated around the people and objects it encountered. It could locate and grip the cleaning trolleys even when they weren't positioned perfectly and handle both scheduled transports and additional requests. When bed transports approached, Drivey could give way or wait at a predefined location before continuing its journey.
Watching the robot was only one part of the pilot. Watching the people around it was equally interesting. Staff were curious about how Drivey navigated, while both staff and patients initially tended to give it plenty of room. It highlighted something that becomes obvious when robotics moves into shared spaces: it isn't enough for the robot to understand people – people also need to understand the robot. How it signals its intentions and how predictable its movements feel are part of making autonomous logistics work naturally in a hospital.
The things a test track doesn't teach you
Some of the most valuable insights from the pilot came from situations that are difficult to recreate in a development environment. Automatic doors are a good example. On paper, opening a door for a robot sounds simple. In a real hospital, different doors have different sensors, timings and behaviours. Then there are changing traffic patterns, temporary obstacles and all the small variations that are simply part of a working hospital.
These practical details are exactly why testing in the real environment matters. At Östra, we weren't only testing whether Drivey could move a trolley. We were seeing how the complete transport workflow performed in the environment it was designed for, and gaining the real-world knowledge needed to take the next steps towards commercial deployment.
What comes next?
The pilot at Östra confirmed several of the fundamentals behind Drivey: autonomous transport of existing hospital trolleys, navigation alongside real hospital traffic and operation as part of an actual logistics workflow.
With the core transport concept demonstrated in a real hospital environment, our focus now is on the remaining development and integration work towards commercial deployment.
Could Drivey solve a logistics challenge in your hospital? Let us bring it to you. Get in touch to arrange a demonstration at your hospital.
