The development of autonomous vehicles, both ground and airborne, for hospitals and clinical settings is an extremely interesting topic that has developed rapidly in recent years. Given their significant potential to improve operational efficiency and safety protocols, these devices are gradually gaining an important place in the healthcare industry. This is true for both in-hospital and out-of-hospital functions. The integration of autonomous vehicles into these environments will greatly increase operational efficiency and enrich the experience for both medical staff and patients. This document provides an updated and comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art in the development of autonomous vehicles for the healthcare sector. Particular emphasis is placed on design, functionality, and level of autonomy. The review is organized on two levels: a prospective review highlights the main trends in the design and application of autonomous vehicles, and an analytical review performs an in-depth analysis of the main aspects of the technical solutions developed and implemented in the scientific research reviewed. The results are presented in a schematic approach.

Electric transport vehicles offer sustainable transportation solutions with benefits, such as reduced emissions, noise, and operating costs. This paper draws an overview of the available technical solutions to actuate transport vehicles with electric drives, as depicted by patent literature. A dataset of 1784 patents was created; the documents were selected through a systematic approach, and the patents were then classified according to a number of user-defined categories. The dataset was analyzed by applying two different methods: (i) a quantitative analysis (literature overview), enabling glance evaluations about the defined categories, and (ii) a qualitative analysis (detailed analysis), which focuses on the detection of interesting design features or innovative solutions. The results of this work not only provide an alternative and complementary overview to the analysis of solutions that may emerge from a scientific literature review, but can also offer support in strategic planning to companies wishing to protect their innovations and remain competitive in the evolving market of transport vehicles.