Smart Video Coding Method for Time Lag Reduction in Telesurgery; Conference paper

摘要

In the future war against terror and new types of offensive activities away from home, telemedical systems, including a telesurgical system, may become standard military medical equipment. In recent years, there have been significant technological advances in both telecommunications and robotics. These advances have made remotely operable telemedicine possible. However, a key technology that rapidly encodes, transmits, and decodes surgical video with the minimum round-trip delay and the least influence by network jitter (random fluctuation of delay) is not currently available. This paper presents a special purpose video coding method to support telesurgery, telemonitoring, and teleconsultation, with special emphasis on telesurgery. Our method utilizes advanced image processing algorithms which prioritize the importance of the scene shown on the video screen. This prioritization is performed according to a gaze map constructed based on tracking the eye movements of the remote observer. During network congestion, our system processes video data more aggressively and transmits non-essential data at reduced data rates. As a result, the essential information necessary to perform surgery is protected against network deterioration.