I was mainly thinking of use cases outside hospitals. We need to transport items within our facility, and a robot operating at night or in less trafficked areas seemed a better solution. I can see the value of pneumatics in a real-time, busy hospital setting.
> We need to transport items within our facility, and a robot operating at night or in less trafficked areas seemed a better solution.
A robot has to share space with everything else in its path. Mount rails on the ceiling and have carriages hanging off of them that can transport a variety of loads.
The major issue with these though is fire safety (you need to install appropriately sized doors that close in the event of a fire) and getting something certified to allow carrying of stuff directly overhead of people. And if it's really heavy loads, you'll need some sort of reinforcements to support the rails, which may not be doable in some settings, e.g. large long warehouses where the ceiling doubles as roof and is only spec'd to hold the weight of itself and a 50-year-record snowfall.
