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RoboDoc: An Autonomous Barangay Healthcare Provider

Mc Niel Lat Mona Liza Maravilla Carl Jefrey Contemplacion
Batangas State University – Malvar Batangas State University – Malvar Batangas State University – Malvar
Batangas, Philippines Batangas, Philippines Batangas, Philippines
mclat15@gmail.com maravillamonaliza@gmail.com cjcontemplacion@gmail.com

Abstract - RoboDoc was developed with the aim of serving as an alternative healthcare provider for
those people living in communities that cannot be reached by traditional medical personnel such as
doctors and nurses. RoboDoc can understand Tagalog symptoms provided by the user either though voice
or touch input and diagnose the user’s medical condition though the provided symptoms. The researchers
were able to integrate Google’s Speech-to-Text API in order to accept and process Tagalog words spoken
into the machine by the users. The system’s database was precisely build from different sources of medical
data such as actual physicians and trusted medical websites. RoboDoc can also dispense over-the-counter
medicines that can help cure the diagnosed disease of the user. The system was built by two separate
groups of researchers; one group focusing on the development of the software and diagnosis process, and
another group concentrating on the development of the hardware and medicine-dispensing process. After
several series of test cases and revisions, the researchers were able to achieve 100% accuracy on the
overall diagnosis process and only 90% on the medicine dispensing process due to hardware connectivity
issues.
Keywords –autonomous healthcare provider, expert system, medical robotics, Tagalog voice recognition
aimed to develop a device that is autonomous or does
INTRODUCTION
not need any human help or intervention while
Article II Section 15 of the 1987 Philippine diagnosing patients. And since the goal is to deploy the
Constitution proclaims that the state shall protect and device on a community where majority are native
promote the right to health of the people and instill speakers in Tagalog, the system was designed to be able
health consciousness among them. But there are still a to analyze the symptoms given by the patient in a more
lot of people who suffer from poor health conditions common language specifically Tagalog.
due to lack of access to proper health care specialists The developed device is an example of an expert
and professionals. These instances often happen due to system which is a form of software where the domain
lack of money to spend for medical purposes such as knowledge of the people from a specific field of study
medicines or visits to a health care professional which is such as medicine was combined the technical
often too expensive for families living with income knowledge available in the internet and other electronic
below the minimum wage. There are also remote places way of gathering data. The aim of the expert system, the
where barangay health centers offer the ethereal one developed by the researchers, is to be able to
unavailability of medical staffs, inadequate facilities, somehow replace or be an alternative to an actual
and insufficient supply of medicines. medical personnel to perform the tasks and activities
Few doctors are so devoted to their calling that they that one is expected to.
go to the extent of personally visiting those hard to Furthermore, illiteracy plays a huge role too. People
reach barrios and conduct physical and other medical who never learned to read or write often rely to what
examinations to the residents with little or no incentives they hear from other people in treating their diseases
at all. Even the equipment and medicines used by those and never get proper prescriptions from a medical
doctors came from their own pockets. But regularly specialist or professional. They sometimes rely on what
travelling and visiting these distant communities are not they think is appropriate based on their past experiences
just physically and financially exhausting, it puts their or worst, on what is the most affordable from the
life at risk. For instance, a doctor from Lanao, Del nearest store. They are mostly afraid that they will not
Norte was shot dead while being deployed on a understand what a medical professional would explain
government program meant to give aid on far-off to them and prefer not to ask any help at all.
communities called Doctors to the Barrios or DTTB.
To address this problem, the researchers included a
These occurrences and other related events had led functionality where the patients can communicate with
to the idea of setting up an automated health care the device vocally or by talking to it. The device will
assistant to isolated communities. The researchers
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understand Tagalog words that will be spoken into it
and process the words in order to determine the possible
disease or medical condition the patient is experiencing.
The device can also accept touch input for people who
are literate enough but cannot speak or talk clearly. The
diagnosis was also yielded in the same language so the
patient can easily understand what they must perform to
cure their illnesses.
The system does not only diagnose symptoms given
by a patient, but also give and dispense proper medicine
that can remedy the patient’s condition. Drugs that were
dispensed by the device are only over-the-counter
medicines and were only distributed when it is truly
needed by the patient which was determined by the
diagnosis. The medicines were dispensed together with
the instructions for proper amount of intake. As long as
it is needed by the patient and is still offered, the device
would not require any form of payment to dispense the
medicine.
The researchers aim to create a device with an
efficient system that can help those who are in need of
medical attention but fails to afford some. More
importantly, to improve the quality of health and well-
being of the indigents through humble medical
assistance innovation.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Throughout the study, the researchers found
different problems and encountered various concerns.
The following questions are the ones that the
researchers seek to find answers:
1. How can the researchers integrate Google’s
speech recognition service or the Google’s Speech-to-
Text API as Tagalog Speech to Text Service to their
system?
2. How can the Knuth-Morris-Pratt (KMP) String
Searching Algorithm provide optimal results in terms of
deriving desired matches from the output of speech
recognition API and input from the search bar?
3. How can the Hierarchical Clustering Algorithm
develop the right dendrogram for classifying the
different symptoms in groups for a distributed touch
input options?
4. How can an autonomous healthcare companion
and medicine dispensing device using Tagalog voice
recognition provide efficient patient diagnosis and
accurate medicine dispensing?
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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
This part presented and explains the theories that are
relevant to the algorithms that were used for the
developed application. This includes various algorithms
that the researchers researched and studied to prove the
use of the developed application.
The Knuth–Morris–Pratt string searching algorithm
(or KMP algorithm) searches for occurrences of a
"pattern" within a main "text string" by using some
generated information about the pattern to skip some
comparisons that are unnecessary. This pre generated
information is in a form of “prefix table”. The algorithm
is derived from the naïve or brute force method wherein
the pattern will be aligned with every possible fit in the
text string and check if it can find a pattern in that
position.
The prefix table is generated by first initializing the
prefix table by the same size of the pattern. Each
character is given a definite value based on the
appearance of the prefix (all the characters in the pattern
with one or more cut off the end) or suffix (all the
characters in the pattern with one or more cut off the
beginning) that currently available on the character in
the pattern. The first character will always be given the
value 0 because based on the description of the suffix
and prefix, it is impossible to derive a prefix or suffix
from a single character. The length of the matching
suffix and prefix will be the value which will be given
to the character. Once there is an appearance of two or
more matching suffix and prefix, the longer one will be
chosen for it will give out less skips for the algorithm.
Figure 1. Prefix Table Generation Example
Figure 1 shows an example of prefix table
generation. The first character does not have existing
suffixes or prefixes so it will be given a value 0. The
first two character still does not present any matching
suffixes or prefixes so it will be given a value of 0. On
the appearance of third character, it can be seen that ‘Y’
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appeared as both suffix and prefix so will be given a
value 1. On the appearance of 4th character, ‘YB’ can
be seen as a suffix and prefix and it has the character
length of 2 so it will be given a value 2. On the fifth
character, there will be no possible suffix or prefix so it
be given the value 0. Therefore giving us the final
prefix table value of 0-0-1-2-0.
Once the prefix table is calculated, the KMP
matching process can actually begin. First, the text (T)
length will be noted as ‘m’ and the pattern (P) length
will be noted as ‘n’. The longest prefix/suffix that has
been found in the pattern will be noted as ‘i’. The letter
‘j’ will be the pointer to the text where the pattern is
currently aligned to. The π symbol will represent the
prefix table.
Figure 2. Flowchart for the KMP Algorithm
Figure 2 shows the flowchart for the KMP
algorithm. The process starts with initializing the value
of m to the string length and n to the pattern length. The
variables i and j will serve as position indicators. As
long j does not have the same value as the length of the
string, check the following cases. First it checks if i is
greater than 0 and the letter after i (P [i + j]) is not equal
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to the character jth character T[j]. If there is a mismatch
found in the first case, the prefix will be equal to the
previously generated prefix. If not, the algorithm checks
for possible matches and moves to the next character
whenever it see a match. If the match is found, it will
output the match and look for another match in the
string.
The Knuth–Morris–Pratt string searching algorithm
was used in the program to match the text output of the
API to the possible symptoms which are stored in the
database. The match that will be found by the algorithm
will be used in the succeeding processes for the system.
The algorithm was also used in the search functionality
of the system. The output that was generated using the
search functionality will be processed just like the
output generated from the API.
In data mining and statistics, hierarchical clustering
algorithm (also called hierarchical cluster analysis or
HCA) is a method of cluster analysis which seeks to
build a hierarchy of clusters. There are two major type
of hierarchical clustering, the “agglomerative” or the
"bottom up" approach where each observation starts in
its own cluster, and pairs of clusters are merged as one
moves up the hierarchy and the “divisive” or the "top
down" approach where all observations start in one
cluster, and splits are performed recursively as one
moves down the hierarchy. The study focus on the
implementation of the divisive hierarchical clustering
for the generation of options for the touch input.
In order to decide which clusters should be
combined (for agglomerative), or where a cluster should
be split (for divisive), a measure of dissimilarity
between sets of observations is required. In most
methods of hierarchical clustering, this is achieved by
use of an appropriate metric (a measure of distance
between pairs of observations), and a linkage criterion
which specifies the dissimilarity of sets as a function of
the pairwise distances of observations in the sets. For
the application of HCA in the study, the metric was set
manually by the users per symptom based on the
relevance and similarities from one another for there are
no possible ways to computationally provide a metric
for non-quantifiable objects such as disease symptoms.
The algorithm was used while the database structure
was created.
For the modified HCA, there would be a given value
to each cluster and this value will be divided depending
on how many clusters can be derived from it. Clusters
will be divided recursively until the desired singleton or
refined cluster is discovered or conceived.
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The Knuth–Morris–Pratt String Searching Algorithm Development Model

together with the Hierarchical Clustering Algorithm
was used by the researchers to create and develop a
fully functioning autonomous barangay healthcare
provider. The hierarchical clustering algorithm was
necessary for the generation of the dendrogram for the
touch input. Each cluster in the hierarchy of options in
the touch input will be produced from the application of
the HCA. Meanwhile, the KMP string searching
algorithm will take place after the conversion of voice
input into text or after the user has used the search
functionality of the system. The text from the
conversion or search bar will be the substring that will
be matched from the set of string in the database in
order to determine medical keywords and other
important information that will be used for the latter
processes in the application. Either the data collected
from touch input or the speech recognition results are
used to find a match in the database and produce proper
diagnosis results for the user.
Figure 3. Dynamic Systems Development Model
MATERIALS AND METHODS
In order for the researchers to develop a system that For the development model used by the researchers,
can properly diagnose a person’s medical condition the researchers chose Dynamic Systems Development
only by analyzing the symptoms provided by the user, Model Methodology. It is divided in three major phase
the researchers needed to gather enough information entitled the Functional Model, the Design and Build and
and data about various diseases that can be diagnosed the Implementation phase. Before the functional model
without physical examinations. Detailed information phase begin, feasibility study and business study is
about the diseases were compiled in order to build a conducted to gather the required specifications for the
database that will be used as reference for the diagnosis project. This phase is intended for business and
process. commercial projects to avoid hasty decision making and
As for the type of research used to develop the poor corporate decisions. As the functional model
system, the researchers decided to use a quantitative begin, the developing team agree with the plan for the
research. Quantitative research has the primary aim of software and then develop a functional prototype for the
providing a complete and detailed description about the system. The prototype is then reviewed for corrections
research topic making it ideal for the system until the functional prototype is identified. The cycle
development. can repeat if the functional prototype is still
Quantitative type of research was done by having unidentified.
different test cases to collect data for an evaluation of In the design and build phase, the design prototypes
the overall functionality of the system. The test case are reviewed thoroughly. The prototypes will then be
covered the necessary tasks that will be performed in decided and identified according to the plan. The
the actual operation of the system. The developers identified design prototype is created after it is agreed
executed a series of testing to gather enough data and upon by the team. After the design prototype is created
was concluded by evaluating the final results. it is reviewed by the development group and may still
be considered as another temporary design prototype or
move to the next phase which is the implementation
phase.
In the implementation phase, the final design
prototype is created and then implemented into use. The
software is reviewed and checked for business aspects
and other decisions that might include information and
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factors from the client side. If the software passed in the
review, it is moved for user approval and guidelines
wherein sample users are surveyed and interviewed
after their interaction with the system and finally train
the users for the new software. Because Dynamic
Systems Development Model Methodology is an agile
approach, the cycles may repeat depending on changing
requirements such as business aspects.
Figure 3 shows the complete phases and sub-
methods in Dynamic Systems Development Model
Methodology. Aside from the main phases, the sub
processes can be seen and the parts where a phases can
go back to a previous process are also shown in the
figure. It can be seen that the feasibility study and
feasibility study is the start of all the processes in the
model followed by the functional model. The part
where the possible interconnections are possible is
shown by the dotted lines pointing to the sub processes
where a phase can structurally return or backtrack.
Development Approach
The researchers used Top-down as a development
approach in the application. A top-down approach (also
known as stepwise design and in some cases used as a
synonym of decomposition) is essentially the breaking
down of an application to gain insight into its
compositional sub-application in a reverse engineering
fashion. In a top-down approach an overview of the
application is formulated, specifying, but not detailing,
any first-level sub application. Each sub application is
then refined in yet greater details, sometimes in many
additional sub application levels, until the entire
specification is reduced to base elements. A top-down
model is often specified with the assistance of "black
boxes", which makes it easier to manipulate. Figure 4
illustrates the top down approach which starts with the
big picture. It breaks down from there into smaller
segments.
Task
Sub Task Sub Task Sub Task
Sub Task
Sub Task Sub Task
Figure 4. Top-Down Model
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Testing Plans
To guarantee the robustness and efficiency of the
proposed system, the researchers placed the system into
a standardized way of testing and validation. The
researchers chose a method in which the system and its
functionality can be tested without the need of looking
and analyzing its internal structure. This method named
Black Box Testing can be applied to virtually every
level of software testing: unit, integration, system and
acceptance. It typically comprises most if not all higher
level testing, but can also dominate unit testing as well.
There are some following procedures by using this
kind of method, specific knowledge of the application's
code/internal structure and programming knowledge in
general is not required. The tester is aware of what the
software is supposed to do but is not aware of how it
does it. For instance, the tester is aware that a particular
input returns a certain, invariable output but is not
aware of how the software produces the output in the
first place.
In order to properly test the system, the developers
presented the system to a group of people and give them
a walkthrough of the system. After the selected people
were oriented on what the system should do, they were
given a set of task to perform in the system. The user’s
ability to perform the tasks properly measured the ease
of use and usability of the system. To accurately
measure the results of the test cases, the developers
recorded and mark the success rate of the users while
performing each tasks. The system was only marked
Passed when all users were able to perform all the tasks
successfully, giving it the success rate of 100%. This
was also calculated with the formula S = n/t*100
wherein S stands for the success rate, n stands for the
number of users who were able to perform the task
successfully and t for the total number of users who
attempted to do the task, whether successful or
unsuccessful.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To be able to create the speech recognition function
of the system, the researchers used Google’s Speech-
To-Text API. The process is actually powered by a
cloud based computing service that generates the
transcripts of the audio files sent into it by an
application that that is using the API. The API
eliminates the noise in the audio file using its own noise
reduction algorithm and produces clear audio for its
own processing. Once the transcripts of audio files are
generated, it will be sent back to the application as
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string that can be used in other functionalities in the Table 1. Test Results
system. Number of
Number
The system features a search functionality that Tasks
of Users
Successful Results
enables the user to manually type in the symptoms that Tries
they are experiencing. The search functionality first 5/5*10
Task 1
identifies the important keywords that can be used in 0
Keying through 5 5
the diagnosing process and then uses these keywords to =100%
the Search Bar
find the appropriate condition that the user is feeling. Success
Once a proper diagnosis was found, it will then be Task 2 5/5*10
displayed to the user along with the information about Using the Voice 0
5 5
the condition. Recognition =100%
Based on the results that was generated by the Function Success
Hierarchical Clustering Algorithm, the researchers were Task 3 5/5*10
able to classify or cluster all the available diseases in Using the Touch 0
5 5
the database into a ladder of classification in a pyramid- Options =100%
like manner. These results were then displayed in the Function Success
program in a sequence of options presented in different 5/5*10
Task 4
screens wherein the top-most part of the pyramid was 0
Receiving 5 5
first displayed in the sequence. Choosing these options =100%
Diagnosis
will generate information about the condition that the Success
user is currently suffering. Task 5 5/5*10
In order to test the system, the developers made their Receiving 0
5 5
own self-testing to measure the success rate of the Dispensed =100%
system that is validated by the adviser of the developers Medicine Success
in order to determine the users’ level of satisfaction. If Task 6 5/5*10
the test delivers results that suggests that the satisfaction Viewing the 0
5 5
rating and overall performance of the system is below Medicine =100%
the acceptable results, the errors or the parts that caused Inventory Success
the dissatisfaction of user or error in the program is Task 7 5/5*10
modified and improved. The process is repeated until Updating the 0
5 5
the users’ level of satisfaction were at acceptable rate Medicine =100%
and the system is free of errors. Inventory Success

Table 1 shows the testing results for every tasks

accomplished by the users. The success rate of the
system was determined using the formula S = n/t*100.
The test will only be marked “Passed” if S will be equal
to 100%, otherwise, the test will be marked “Failed”. In
Task 1, all five users were able to manually type their
concerns and receive proper diagnosis. For Task 2,
three out of five users were able to voice in their
symptoms and receive appropriate results. This only
gave 60% success rating meaning it is a failure. The
other two experienced connectivity issues regarding the
internet connection of the system. Once the internet
connection was fixed, all five were able to accomplish
the task in the reiteration of the test.
For Task 3 and Task 4, all five users had no problem
completing the tasks properly. Task 4 is all about
receiving diagnosis from the system which means that
whenever the user was able to accomplish one of the
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first three tasks, they will be able to accomplish Task 4
swiftly unless an internal error from the system occurs.
For Task 5, only four of five users were able to
perform the task properly. This was due to interfacing
error between the dispensing machine and the software
itself. The error was easily determined and corrected by
the developers. Once the patch was applied and the link
between the hardware and software components was
reestablished, the users made another try in performing
Task 5 and all five users were able to complete the task.
Task 6 and Task 7 required five different users
because these two tasks were only designed for system
administrators who can view and update the medicine
inventory. Although the system administrators are not
part of the researchers, they are more technologically
inclined than most users that is why all of these system
administrators were able to accomplish both Task 6 and
Task 7 without any difficulties.
To further elucidate, Task 6 was about viewing the
medicine inventory within the touch display. This
involved entering the proper credentials in order to
enter the activity where the information about the
medicine inventory was displayed. Although Task 7 is
also an activity for the system administrator, it only
involves interaction from the physical machine itself. A
physical button corresponding to each medicine in the
database must be pressed in order to update the
medicine count in the system.
Only the final results for each task was recorded by
the researched for the previous results were already
based on a previous version of the system and would
bear no weight in the tabulation process. Only when all
five tasks was accomplished will the testing finally stop.
Once all the tasks were accomplished perfectly and
program errors were corrected, the final results were the
one recorded and calculated by the researchers.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
To determine if the application developed by the
researchers functioned according to its specified
objectives, the researchers conducted a series of test.
Based on the conducted study, the following
conclusions were made.
1. Aside from being able to generate results in such
short time, Google’s Speech-to-Text API was able
to produce a list of other possible results based on
the sound entered by the user. This list of results
was a great feature for the developers for it enabled
them to have options of possible keywords that was
uttered by the users while they were speaking to the
machine. The built in noise reduction functionality
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of the API also removed the constraint of being able
to deploy the machine in an outdoor location where
there are a lot of noise and other sound interference.
However, because the API uses cloud computing
technology, stable internet connection should be
maintained while using the application to be able to
transmit data to its servers.
2. With Knuth-Morris-Pratt (KMP) String Searching
Algorithm, the researchers were able to conclude
that it is possible to perform accurate search
functionalities at any given condition. The
algorithm was able to process even long string
inputs from the search bar available in the
application and generate precise results in
unnoticeable computing time. Short yet
simultaneous inputs was also handled swiftly by the
algorithm.
3. The researchers concluded that Hierarchical
Clustering Algorithm is an appropriate method of
classifying small amounts of data with relatively
similar characteristics. Building a hierarchy of data
based on the similarities and differences was made
stress-free by the algorithm by being able to
pinpoint the exact information that is needed to
create an order of data and divide those data
accordingly.
4. By integrating an efficient API and using competent
algorithms in the system, accurate results were able
to be produced by the system. The use of these
methodologies was also able to make the system
autonomous while in operation with the minimum
human interaction needed which is mostly for the
medicine refilling and troubleshooting externally
generated problems.
Based on findings and conclusions of the study, the
following recommendations were offered. These
recommendations were offered for future modifications
and/or improvements.
1. In order to expand the disease diagnosing
capabilities and the accuracy of the system, the
researchers recommend to regularly update the
system’s database especially the part about the
information of various diseases that can be
identified by the system. Conducting additional
research to expand the system database would also
make improvements in system’s accuracy.
2. The researchers recommend to always base the
information provided by the application in a trusted
and reliable source to also make the application
trusted and reliable, so that the users or the future
users will be always amazed and satisfied by the
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application’s performance. It will assure that the

information’s are always true and accurate.
3. To make the system more replicable for mass
production or other use that requires creating
multiple copies of the system, the researchers
recommends to use a platform or components that
are optimized in creating dispenser-like systems to
reduce compatibility and availability issues.
4. In order for the system to be more autonomous, the
researchers recommend to eliminate internet-
dependent functionalities such as the speech
recognition used by the researchers. Future
researchers are advised to use local voice
recognition engines if such technologies are
available.
5. To add other physical examination features that can
increase the accuracy of the diagnosis of the
system.