Italian firm Oversonic Robotics S.p.A. is pushing its cognitive humanoid robot, RoBee, into the healthcare sector, showcasing a pragmatic design that favors wheels over complex bipedal legs. During a recent demonstration on Bloomberg Live, CEO Paolo Denti presented the RoBee M prototype, a version specifically developed for clinical environments like hospitals and rehabilitation centers. The robot is designed to support medical professionals by handling routine tasks, allowing staff to focus on patient care.
Unlike the parkour-proficient bipeds dominating robotics headlines, RoBee M takes a more grounded approach. It navigates hospital wards using an autonomous mobile base, essentially skates, which is a sensible, if less flashy, choice for the long, flat corridors of medical facilities. The “M” series robot is equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and 5G readiness for seamless integration with electronic health records and can operate for up to 8 hours on a single charge. Its purpose isn’t to replace nurses, but to act as a tireless assistant for autonomous logistics, patient monitoring, and guiding patients through prescribed exercises.
Why is this important?
Oversonic’s strategy with RoBee highlights a crucial debate in humanoid robotics: practicality versus mimicry. While fully bipedal robots are engineering marvels, their complexity and cost can be prohibitive. RoBee’s wheeled base is a deliberate trade-off, prioritizing stability, energy efficiency, and immediate usefulness in structured environments like hospitals over the universal mobility of legs. This approach suggests that the first wave of truly useful humanoid robots in specialized fields might not walk, but roll, quietly and efficiently, into their new jobs.
