Chapter 3: TrayBot: Transporting Surgical Tools in Hospitals

In this chapter, we detail a robust integrated system named TrayBot to autonomously perform manipulation of assets; specifically, transporting reusable surgical instrument trays in the sterile processing center of a hospital. Our method is based on a cognitive decision making mechanism that plans and coordinates the motions of the robot base and the robot manipulator at specific processing locations. A vision-based manipulator control algorithm is developed for the robot to reliably locate and subsequently pick up surgical tool trays. Furthermore, to compensate for perception and navigation errors, we developed a robust self-aligning end effector that allows for improved error-tolerance in larger workspaces.