Security Robot Hospital: Perimeter from €3,500 per Month

A 500-bed hospital site has three vulnerable points at night. The visitor parking deck, the helipad, and the service yard at the goods entrance. One human guard post costs €18,000–22,000 per month. Three posts total roughly €60,000. This text describes how the QR-2 closes these gaps at a fraction of that cost, and which regulatory obligations fall on the Technical Director from 2026 onward.

One preliminary clarification on scope: the robot operates exclusively in exterior areas, on parking decks, and in service yards. It does not enter patient rooms, operating theatres, or ward corridors. This separation is clinically mandatory and contractually fixed.

Security Robot Hospital: The Operational Use Case

Hospital sites from 500 beds show a characteristic vulnerability structure. First, the visitor parking deck, which is sparsely used after 22:00 and where assaults against late-shift staff occur regularly. Second, the helipad, whose approach corridor must be kept clear by law and where drone sightings have increased since 2022. Third, the service road with waste area, pharmacy delivery point, and pathology exit, where no deliveries occur between 22:00 and 06:00 but where persons are regularly found present.

Three static 24/7 posts with an external security service cost between €15,000 and €25,000 per month per position, depending on the federal state. That produces an annual burden of €540,000–900,000. One QR-2 patrols the entire site with thermal camera, person detection, and live audio announcement for €3,500 per month under the RaaS model. The robot does not replace the reception desk at the main entrance or the gatehouse at the patient building. It replaces the external post at the parking deck and the nightly Streife through the service yard.

Hospitals with 30,000 or more fully inpatient cases per year qualify as KRITIS facilities in the health sector under §6 BSI-KritisV. From 2026 onward, they are subject to mandatory registration with the BBK under the KRITIS-Dachgesetz and must maintain a physical protection concept. Those planning perimeter security today should factor the compliance cost into their cost-benefit calculation.

Further detail in the cluster KRITIS Sector Hospital.

KRITIS Obligations in the Health Sector from 2026

The KRITIS-Dachgesetz, Bundestag-Drucksache 20/9262, obliges operators of critical facilities to ensure physical resilience. This includes perimeter protection, access control, and technical detection. The obligation covers risk analysis, a documented protection concept, and evidentiary records. Details are in the draft legislation of the Federal Government.

The threshold for the health sector is 30,000 fully inpatient cases per year. A 500-bed hospital typically exceeds this figure by a clear margin. The BBK registration obligation takes effect from the deadline set in the final statutory text. Board members and managing directors bear personal liability for implementing the protection obligations.

NIS-2 covers the IT side. Directive EU 2022/2555 sets minimum standards for network and information security; Article 21 lists the required technical measures. The Dachgesetz covers the physical side. Both apply in parallel. A hospital must satisfy both regimes. The responsible officers typically sit in separate departments.

Operationally, this produces a documentation obligation. Every detection incident at the perimeter, every approach to the helipad, every presence in the service yard outside delivery hours must be logged in an audit-proof format. Paper guard logs no longer meet this standard. Practical guidance on requirements under the Dachgesetz and on BBK registration step by step.

Which Areas of the Hospital the Robot Covers

The deployment map for a typical 500-bed facility covers six zones.

Visitor Parking Deck. Patrol run every 20 minutes during the night shift between 20:00 and 06:00. Visual contact maintained with all emergency call buttons. When a person is detected off the designated paths, an automatic audio address is triggered and a live feed is opened to the gatehouse.

Helipad. Approach corridor kept clear of persons and drones. Alert triggered on approach by vehicles or pedestrians to the safety perimeter. When the control centre issues an active approach notification, the robot increases patrol frequency in the surrounding area.

Service Yard and Waste Area. Detection of presence outside delivery hours of 22:00–06:00. Thermal monitoring of waste containers for fire load. Audio address on unexpected presence.

Exterior Facade of Patient Building. Thermal monitoring of ground-floor windows against break-in and vandalism. Detection of open windows outside ventilation periods.

Pathology and Pharmacy Delivery Point. Higher patrol frequency due to controlled substances storage. Visual check of security door locking status. Audio address on approach by unauthorised persons.

Late-Shift Staff Car Park. Escort visibility for staff between 22:00 and 24:00. The robot positions itself at the nursing area exit on request and accompanies staff across the site to their vehicles. This function measurably reduces turnover in nursing.

What the robot does not cover: patient corridors, admissions, operating theatres, isolation wards, nursing stations. These areas remain staffed by humans. The QR-2 for 24/7 exterior patrol is a perimeter solution, not clinical robotics.

Cost Calculation Against Human Security Services

A 24/7 exterior post with a qualified Wachdienst costs, per the BDSW tariff structure, between €22 and €28 per hour depending on the federal state. At 730 hours per month, direct costs reach €16,000–20,500. Including roster surcharges, allowances, and VAT, one post reaches €18,000–22,000 per month.

Three exterior posts produce a pure personnel cost of €54,000–66,000 per month, or €648,000–792,000 per year.

A hybrid model deploys one QR-2 for the mobile Streife and reduces the human component to a single central gatehouse post with escalation authority. Monthly costs then amount to roughly €25,000: €3,500 for the robot plus €21,500 for the gatehouse. The saving in the first year is between €350,000 and €500,000 at equal or greater area coverage.

What the comparison does not capture still belongs in the board submission. The robot has no sick leave, no annual leave, no turnover. It is available 168 hours per week. It logs every patrol automatically in an audit-proof format. What it cannot do: de-escalate, detain, or physically intervene. For those situations, the gatehouse with §34a-qualified staff remains responsible. Detail table in Security Guard Costs Compared.

Technical Specification for Hospital Deployment

The QR-2 carries a thermal camera with 640 x 512 pixel resolution. Person detection up to 80 metres. The audio module supports live announcement by the gatehouse and pre-configured acoustic warnings.

Conformity covers EN ISO 13482 for personal care robots, to the extent relevant for exterior operation in proximity to persons, and EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230. The risk assessment under Annex I of the Machinery Regulation accompanies every deployment.

GDPR conformity is critical in hospital environments. Faces are pixellated on-board before any image data leaves the robot. Only triggered incident clips are transmitted to the server. No raw image storage takes place. The technical data protection concept is provided and must be aligned with the hospital's data protection officer.

Acoustic warnings are pre-configured in four languages: German, English, Turkish, Russian. Additional languages can be added depending on regional patient demographics. Language selection is made situationally by the gatehouse operator.

The hardware is weatherproof to IP65. Operating temperature: minus 10 to plus 45 degrees Celsius. Autonomous charging occurs at a docking station; the robot navigates to the station independently when battery level drops below 20 percent.

Integration into Existing Hospital Security Architecture

Most hospitals operate a central video management system, typically Milestone XProtect or Genetec Security Center. The QR-2 connects via the ONVIF interface as an additional mobile camera. No parallel operator interface is created.

Alarm forwarding runs in parallel to the gatehouse, facilities management, and external emergency and service control centre. The escalation matrix is pre-configured during commissioning: which alarm type goes to which recipient, at what response time, with what fallback level. This matrix forms part of the protection concept required under the Dachgesetz.

The digital patrol report replaces the paper guard log. Every patrol run is automatically logged with timestamp, GPS track, and detection events. The shift handover draws on the same data set. This satisfies the KRITIS documentation obligation.

Interfaces to the combined heat and power unit and the fire alarm system run via dry contacts. No intervention in the hospital LAN, no OT integration into medical technology. The separation is technically hard and documented in the connection diagram.

Commissioning runs parallel to ongoing hospital operations in 48 hours. No restricted area required, no patient communication necessary, no disruption to care delivery. Installation covers the docking station, WLAN access in the exterior area, site mapping, and connection to the VMS.

Procurement in the Hospital Context: RaaS Instead of Capital Investment

The Robotics-as-a-Service model suits hospitals better than outright purchase. Monthly operating costs instead of CapEx. No activation on the fixed asset register. No depreciation question over five or ten years. Costs appear as Sachkosten Bewachung on the same cost centre as the existing Wachdienst.

Under public procurement law, the OpEx approach typically falls below the EU procurement threshold and usually also below the UVgO threshold. Direct award or restricted tender is possible. This shortens procurement from the typical six to twelve months to four to eight weeks.

The contract structure provides for a 24-month minimum term, followed by quarterly termination rights. Hardware replacement on generation change is included. Maintenance, software updates, and a replacement unit on failure within 48 hours: all included in the monthly price. No renegotiation on wear, no investment risk on technological change.

For the board decision, a three-month pilot on a partial site is recommended, typically the visitor parking deck and the helipad. After the pilot, a board submission with real measured data is available: number of detections, response times, staff utilisation, incident rate. These data persuade a CFO. Abstract promises do not.

Those wanting to set up a pilot phase or calculate the business case for their facility take the direct route: Request a pilot with Marcus Köhnlein. Technical specification and deployment profile for the QR-2 for 24/7 exterior patrol.