Authors - Abeer Tag, Tahani Almarri, Abir Sidilemine, Rowaa Khaled, Loay Ismail Abstract - Medication non-adherence among elderly and chronically ill patients remains a critical global health challenge, leading to severe complications, hospital readmissions, and reduced quality of life. This paper presents REMEDI, a smart mobile medication dispensing robot that integrates autonomous indoor navigation, biometric patient authentication, automated pill dispensing, pill verification, and real-time adherence monitoring into a unified platform. The system combines a TurtleBot3 Waffle Pi mobile base with a custom-designed three-cylinder dispensing mechanism controlled using Raspberry Pi 5 and Arduino Nano. Patient verification is performed using facial recognition with MobileFaceNet embeddings and liveness detection, achieving an overall verification accuracy of 83.3% and zero false accepts during experimental testing. Autonomous navigation is implemented using LiDAR-based SLAM and A* path planning, enabling map-based movement between predefined indoor patient locations. Post-dispensing verification uses a custom-trained YOLOv11 object detection model integrated with OpenCV for pill detection and counting. A companion Android application allows caregivers to enroll patients, schedule medications, and monitor adherence in real time. Experimental results show successful integrated operation, including dispensing delays below 5 seconds, navigation success rates of 84–92%, 95% dispensing reliability, and functional multi-patient queue management. Although pill verification achieved only 69% real-world accuracy, the results demonstrate the feasibility of integrating mobility, secure authentication, dispensing, and monitoring in one user-centered prototype. REMEDI aims to bridge the gap between stationary home medication dispensers and large institutional delivery robots.
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