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