新一代机器人来了

    在原型产品和最终产品之间，有两项技术起到了连接作用。首先，iRobot公司与InTouch Health公司合作开发了一个用户界面，它使用的媒介是几乎每个医生都熟悉的iPad。在硬件方面，iRobot的工程师给RP-VITA配上了一套自动导航系统，这个系统依靠预先设定好的内置医院地图，可以制定从一个地方到另一个地方的路线。另外RP-VITA身上还安装了导航传感器，以确保机器人在走路的过程中不会撞到任何人或任何东西。这样一来，一个身在芝加哥的医生如果想知道某个病人的病情，只需拿出平板电脑，然后命令一个RP-VITA机器人移动到病人的病房里就行了。在机器人走路的这段时间里，他还可以看看芝加哥的另一个病人，也可以提前看看会诊用的图表和病历，或者喝杯咖啡、去趟洗手间。最重要的是，现在我们不需要有一个医生或护士专门坐在那里，操纵机器人了。

    InTouch Health的CEO王友仑称，这种进步就像从MP3到iPod的进步。从医疗方面看，RP-VITA是第一个自我导航的机器人，也是第一个可以通过一个iPad应用输入简单指令就可以操纵的机器人。而且它还获得了美国食品和药物管理局（FDA）的二级认证，意味着医生可以使用RP-VITA对病人进行监护。也就是说，医生可以通过这个机器人对病人进行会诊，然后实时开处方、制定治疗方案，跟医生就在病房里没有什么两样。这项认证意味着RP-VITA和某些其它的远程医疗设备有了明显的区别：利用多种医疗设备配件（比如超声波成像）加强RP-VITA的功能后，医生可以真正地对病人进行远程诊断、开具处方等，而不只是与病人进行简单的听说交流。

    换句话说，RP-VITA可以成为一个技术非常复杂的医疗平台，所以FDA才把它正式认证为一款医疗设备（而不是一个安了轮子的iPad）。不过从用户的角度看，这些复杂的技术都隐藏在一个直观的触屏用户界面下，再加上它的自我导航技术，使得大多数远程呈现机器人的低效性得以被充分避免。用安格尔的话说，它是一个真正的产品。

    王友仑说：“这就是我为什么把它比作从MP3播放器到iPod的飞跃。以前用MP3播放器的人比现在用iPod的人少得多，因为把音乐组织起来再上传到播放器上太麻烦了。这时，iPod带着iTunes商店面世了，使听音乐变简单起来。但是要从MP3转变到iPod却很复杂。现在的情况也是一样。”

    王友仑表示，现在市面上用于医疗护理的机器人很多，这些机器人要么靠护士推着车子拉着它走，要么靠操纵杆操纵，或者说存在其它使用上的困难，同时这些机器人的市场普及率也很低。目前使用了远程呈现机器人的医院都算是这项技术的早期采用者。而市场的其它部分——不仅包括医疗领域，也包括其它任何遥控机器人可能产生影响的领域，也都在等待王友仑所说的“iPod运动”。

    王友仑说：“要想让这个概念被主流接受，要想让它扩展到整个市场，让医疗界可以体验到远程医疗和远程呈现技术的好处，我们必须让它用起来越来越简单，简单到只要拿出iPad Mini，就可以点击选择你想要的VITA机器人，让它去你想去的地方。”

    Two key technology pieces bridged the gap from prototype to product. First, iRobot partnered with InTouch Health to generate a user interface that virtually every doctor is already fluent in: the touch-controlled language of the iPad. Then, on the hardware side, iRobot engineers went to work imbuing RP-VITA with an autonomous navigation system that relies on preprogrammed interior maps of hospitals to plot routes from one place to the next as well as onboard navigational sensors to ensure the robot doesn't collide with anything or anyone along the way. Now a doctor making rounds in Chicago who wants to check up on a patient in Topeka can pull out his tablet, instruct an RP-VITA to move to that patient's room, and then use the time while the robot is traveling to visit another patient in Chicago or to pull up charts or records he needs for an upcoming consultation. He can get a cup of coffee or use the restroom. The point is, a skilled internist or nurse isn't sitting around driving a robot.

    InTouch Health CEO Yulun Wang describes this as the MP3 to iPod step for telemedicine. On the medical side, RP-VITA is the first self-navigating robot, and the first that can be directed with simple commands via an iPad app. Class II certification from the FDA means that doctors can use RP-VITA for active patient monitoring -- that is, the doctor can consult with the patient and prescribe care to that patient in real time, no different from if the doctor were right there in the room. This certification is an important distinction between RP-VITA and some other telemedicine setups; It allows for various medical device attachments (like ultrasound imagers, for instance, to augment the RP-VITA so a physician can actually diagnose and prescribe care rather than just talk and listen.

    In other words, RP-VITA can be a very technologically complex platform, so much so that the FDA formally recognizes it as a medical device (and not just an iPad on wheels). But on the user end, that complexity is masked behind an intuitive, app-driven touchscreen user interface and the self-navigating technology that removes that huge layer of inefficiency that shrouds most remote presence robots. Or, as Angle would say, it's a real product.

    "That's why I make the analogy of the MP3 player to iPod," Wang says. "A lot fewer people had the MP3 player because it was just a hassle to get your music organized, get it onto your MP3 player, and then to use it. Then when the iPod came out, along with the iTunes store, it just became easy. But it took a lot of complexity to transition from the MP3 player to the iPod. That's what's happening here."

    There are quite a few robots out there being used for patient care, Wang says, all of them involving a nurse pushing a cart, a joystick control, or some added layer of difficulty. As such, the penetration of the market has been fairly minimal. The hospitals currently using telepresence robots are the early adopters. The rest of the marketplace -- and that doesn't just include the health care space, but anywhere telerobotics might make an impact -- is still waiting for the iPod moment.

    "To get this concept adopted by the mainstream, to get it to proliferate throughout the market where health care in general can experience the benefits of telemedicine and remote presence, we had to make it simpler and simpler to use," Wang says. "So simple that you can just pull out your iPad Mini, tap on the VITA you want and where you want it to go, and it just goes there."