NLP Enabled Autonomous Indoor Navigation Robot for Kannada in RHCs

Kunal A Kathare, Kushal C G, Kevin Philip Kottukapally, Kshitij Sharma, Vadiraja Acharya

Abstract:

In Regional Healthcare Centers (RHCs) in many of rural areas of India, due to the language barriers between the patients and the RHC staff, communication difficulties often intensifies the patient’s stress due to their inability to understand the workings of a RHC. This research paper presents a medical service robot which is designed to overcome these issues. The medical service robot can understand the patient’s symptoms which are described to it in Kannada language using speech recognition and then using NLP techniques, it will be able to predict the appropriate department to guide the patient to. The robot then uses ROS2 and its navigation techniques to guide the patient to the appropriate department location. The robot is also attached with a camera at the back so that it can track the patient and see to it that the patient follows the robot. This paper discusses the technical aspects of the robot, highlighting its potency in improving the patient experience. This innovation has the capability to amplify the healthcare accessibility and patient care in rural areas of India, reducing linguistic and navigational challenges.