Dr rer. nat. Anna Brinkmann has won the "Robotics Talent Award 2023" from the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digitalisation for her doctorate. The prize is endowed with 3,000 euros and was awarded at the end of November as part of the European Robotics Week in Hanover. Brinkmann has been working as a research assistant in the Assistance Systems and Medical Technology department at the Department of Health Services Research since 2017, having previously studied in Cologne, Istanbul and Bremerhaven.
The cumulative doctorate entitled "Biomechanical Analysis of Nursing Tasks for Physical Relief by Collaborative Robotics" consists of a total of four publications in national and international peer-reviewed journals. Two of the papers have been published in the renowned journal "Nature - Scientific Reports". One of the papers has already been honoured with the Hermine Heusler-Edenhuizen Prize of the School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
The doctoral thesis was the first in the world to experimentally quantify the potential of collaborative robotics to relieve the physical strain on carers. The overarching goal was to minimise the back-damaging load variables in order to reduce the musculoskeletal complaints that still occur too frequently in the already understaffed nursing wards. By using the robotic system, the maximum force required in the nursing process could be reduced by up to 51 per cent. The work demonstrates the feasibility of robot-assisted repositioning of patients and lays the foundation for future research work and the transfer of interdisciplinary research knowledge into practice.
The "Robotik Talente Preis" is awarded annually by Lower Saxony's Minister of Economic Affairs Olaf Lies for special projects and theses in the categories "Doctorate", "Master's Thesis" and "Bachelor's Thesis". With this competition, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digitalisation aims to support young talent in the field of robot-assisted change and make the work of young scientists in the field of robotics visible.