Converged Broadband Optical and Wireless
Communication Infrastructure for NextGeneration Telehealth
Arshad Chowdhury, Hung-Chang Chien, Sourabh Khire,
Shu-Hao Fan, Nikil Jayant and Gee-Kung Chang
Georgia Tech Broadband Institute
Presentation by John Shu
Agenda
 Terminology
 Trends
 Motivation
 Key Issues
 Solutions
 Implementation
 Results
 Conclusion
Terminology
 Telehealth/Telemedicine Systems:
Systems that facilitate the exchange of electronic information e.g.
medical images and real time video for remote monitoring,
diagnosis, telesurgery etc. [Arshad Chowdury et al]
 Radio Over Fiber:
A transmission technology where by light is modulated by a radio
signal and transmitted via an optical fiber link to facilitate wireless
access. (Wikipedia)
Terminology cont’d
 RAU
Remote Antenna Unit used in conjunction with the Radio-OverFiber backbone to transmit and receive from wireless devices.
 IMGR
Intelligent Modality Gateway Router provides signal processing for
various protocol-independent wireless-band conversion (RF,
Microwave, and millimeter wave), routing functionalities, necessary
media conversions, local buffering and storage, and authentication
and security functions. [Arshad Chowdury et al]
Motivation
 Telehealth and related fields are used world wide to
remedy the non-uniform distribution of healthcare
professionals.
 According to the authors, these systems facilitate the
exchange of information e.g. CT Scans, Radiology
images or Real time videos.
 This permits remote diagnosis, monitoring, telesurgery
etc
Motivation cont’d
 Increase patient reach in rural areas
 Facilitate access to specialty health care in urban areas
 Obtain second opinion from remotely located experts
 Support remote health monitoring
 Facilitate remote education of upcoming professionals
Trends in the Field
 In the past, low bit rate voice or text based phone
consultation as well as monitoring patients.
 Currently, more HD quality video-centric super high
resolution image-intensive remote diagnosis
applications.
 Also, real time delivery of multimedia such as in
Telesurgery which has numerable benefits e.g.
education or obtaining second opinions
Key Issues
 Transmission of high resolution images
 A single Whole Slide Image (WSI) of 20mm X 15 mm
sampled at 0.25 microns at about 24 bits/pixel can
occupy up to 15GB
 Furthermore, if Z-Stack images are being used i.e. using
multiple focal lengths. The resulting file size will be in the
order of hundreds of GB or even TB
Key Issues
 Issues with real time or time sensitive applications
 Applications such as Frozen section diagnosis, dynamic
pathology and real time tele-radiology.
 Transmitting 500MB MRI coast-to-coast has RTT of about
10 hours over 1.5Mb/sec T1 lines and 50 sec with 1Gb/s
line
Key Issues
 Compression could be a potential solution, but
aggressive ‘lossy’ compression can introduce
objectionable artifacts.
 The problem of transmission technology which includes
closed networks from service providers that limit broad
band adoption in hospitals
 There is also the issue of network penetration in the
hospital buildings. Some of them can have very
secluded areas with dense walls.
Proposed Solution
 Distributed Antenna based optical wireless systems
realized by radio over fiber technology can solve
penetration issues.
 An integrated network architecture and communication
system using broadband optical wireless radio over
fiber technology.
 Proposed systems provides multi-service, multi-carrier
broadband modalities of the telemedicine system
Implementation
FIg.1 Converged Broadband Optical and Wireless Communication Infrastructure for NextGeneration Telehealth
Implementation
 Radio-over-fiber networks providing connectivity
through out large buildings.
 In-building backbone to transmits the signal. Remote
Antenna Unit (RAU) distributes wireless signal.
 Devices such as text, multimedia, radiology, pathology
or just monitoring devices can access the network.
Implementation
 At the core is the Intelligent Modality Gateway Router
(IMGR)
 The IMGR provides signal processing for various
protocol independent wireless band conversions (e.g.
RF, Microwave, millimeter wave).
 It also handles routing functionalities, media
conversions, local buffering and storage, authentication
and security
Network Interconnection in Health care
facility.
Fig.2 Converged Broadband Optical and Wireless Communication Infrastructure for Next-Generation
Telehealth
Implementation
 Communication between MRI, radiology, remotely
mounted camera in operation room and conference
room
 IMGR receives hi-res as well as uncompressed images
and HD video signals and performs up conversions for
wireless modalities.
 Hi-res images can be examined by remote specialist or
students a remotely view procedures in real time or
stand-by specialist can offer their opinions
Proof of Concept
Experimental Setup
 Setup optical wireless network using 60 GHz mm wave
radio-over-fiber technology.
 Unidirectional real time uncompressed HD video link
between labs on Georgia tech campus
 Link comprised of optical fiber network for 25 km and a
wireless transmission for distance of 5 meters.
Experimental Setup
Fig.3 Converged Broadband Optical and Wireless Communication Infrastructure for Next-Generation Telehealth
Results
 A 1.5Gb/s output stream was
up-converted to 60GHz mm wave
and transmitted over
radio-over-fiber link
 Wireless signal was received by a 60 GHz radio
receiver and displayed on an HD TV
 Live feed was that of Glioblastoma. Pictures were clear
with no perceptual loss of quality
Conclusion
 Proposed next-generation broadband transport and
access architecture using integrated wireless radio
over fiber technology
 Demonstrated with proof of concept setup experimental
setup using single mode optical fiber and RAU.
Achieved virtually no perceptual loss of quality
 Employed existing and emerging 3G,4G/LTE, Wi-Fi,
Wi-Max all routed through their IMGR
References
 A. Chowdhury, H-C Chien, Y-T Hsueh, G-K Chang,
"Advanced System Technologies and Field Demonstration
for In-Building Optical-Wireless Network with Integrated
Broadband Services," J. of Lightwave technologies, vol. 27,
no. 12, pp1920 - 1927, June 2009
 I. Pratap et al, "Comparative technical evaluation of various
communication media used for telemedical videoconference," HealthCom 2008, July 2008, pp 1-2
 D.K. Kim et al, "A Mobile telemedicine system for remote
consultation system in cases of acute stroke," Jour.
Telemedicine and Telecare, Vol. 15, pp. 102-107,2009