Cardiac ultrasonography over 4G wireless networks using a tele-operated robot

Healthcare Technology Letters

article

Sotiris Avgousti¹  Andreas S. Panayides²  Antonis P. Jossif⁴  Eftychios G. Christoforou⁵  Pierre Vieyres⁶  Cyril Novales⁶  Sotos Voskarides⁷  Constantinos S. Pattichis³ 

[1] Nursing Department, School of Health and Science, Cyprus University of Technology;Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College;Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus;‘PAEDI’ Center for Specialized Pediatrics;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Cyprus;Laboratoire PRISME;Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Informatics, Cyprus University of Technology

关键词: biomedical ultrasonics;    cardiology;    medical robotics;    telemedicine;    Long Term Evolution;    4G wireless networks;    teleoperated robot;    end-to-end mobile teleechography platform;    portable robot;    remote cardiac ultrasonography;    long-term evolution;    LTE wireless networks;    responsive robot telemanipulation;    real-time ultrasound video streaming;    video coding standards;    video quality;    teleechography sessions;    cardiac ultrasound video;    robotised teleechography platform;    remote diagnosis;    in-hospital ultrasound examination;   

DOI  :  10.1049/htl.2016.0043

学科分类：肠胃与肝脏病学

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

This Letter proposes an end-to-end mobile tele-echography platform using a portable robot for remote cardiac ultrasonography. Performance evaluation investigates the capacity of long-term evolution (LTE) wireless networks to facilitate responsive robot tele-manipulation and real-time ultrasound video streaming that qualifies for clinical practice. Within this context, a thorough video coding standards comparison for cardiac ultrasound applications is performed, using a data set of ten ultrasound videos. Both objective and subjective (clinical) video quality assessment demonstrate that H.264/AVC and high efficiency video coding standards can achieve diagnostically-lossless video quality at bitrates well within the LTE supported data rates. Most importantly, reduced latencies experienced throughout the live tele-echography sessions allow the medical expert to remotely operate the robot in a responsive manner, using the wirelessly communicated cardiac ultrasound video to reach a diagnosis. Based on preliminary results documented in this Letter, the proposed robotised tele-echography platform can provide for reliable, remote diagnosis, achieving comparable quality of experience levels with in-hospital ultrasound examinations.

【 授权许可】

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