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Telesurgery |
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HaiVision’s MAKO-HD™ Supports Titan Medical and
Bell Canada’s Groundbreaking Test of Telesurgery Technologies
HaiVision Systems Inc.
February 2, 2009
Montreal, Canada -- HaiVision Systems Inc., the world’s leading
vendor of high-definition (HD) H.264 TelePresence codecs, today
announced that its hai1000™ network video system and MAKO-HD™ H.264
codec are being used by Titan Medical and Bell Canada to support a
test of telesurgery performed with Titan Medical’s Amadeus® robotic
surgical system over Bell’s IP-VPN network. Implemented at Bell’s
Engineering Resource Center lab facility in Toronto, MAKO-HD
provides the exceptionally low latency HD encoding critical to this
demanding interactive application. |
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"Video is the most demanding
portion of the information being transmitted during telesurgery, and
so it is very important that we have a high-performance
encoding/decoding solution capable of delivering high-quality video
at high speeds," said Dr. Reiza Rayman, president of Titan Medical
Inc. "The low-latency video encoded by HaiVision’s MAKO-HD plays a
key role in the success of this model, which gives surgeons
extraordinary new capabilities and promises to increase access to
specialized care while reducing associated transportation costs."
Telesurgery is the performance of
robotic surgery over a long-distance communications link, and Titan
Medical has created a prototype that can switch from local to remote
control, providing visual feedback through dual HD video signals.
The speed at which video is transmitted determines the speed with
which the surgeon can manipulate the console and see the reaction of
instruments in the stereoscopic video viewer. Reiza’s research shows
that the surgeon’s ability to perform surgical tasks accurately
begins to decrease when video latency reaches the range of 300 to
500 milliseconds.
To simulate long-distance intercity delivery, the team will send
video and data over a network spanning varying long distances and
back to the Bell lab. During the test at Bell, Reiza and his
colleagues expect HaiVision’s MAKO-HD to deliver video with latency
under 200 milliseconds.
The hai1000 TelePresence codec system delivers the highly efficient
MPEG-4 AVC / H.264 video compression standard at unsurpassed levels,
enabling communication of high-resolution HD (up to 1080p) or SD
video and super wideband audio across IP networks at bandwidths
anywhere from 256 kbps to 10 Mbps. The MAKO-HD "zero latency" codec
from HaiVision is the highest-performance H.264 codec available for
HD, supporting up to 1080p resolution and an imperceptible 70
millisecond end-to-end latency.
"Telecommunications is a huge toolset in the delivery of modern
health care and, more specifically, in getting the right information
to right decision point," said Ron Brown, at Bell’s Centre for
Healthcare Innovation. "Titan Medical’s Amadeus and HaiVision’s
MAKO-HD codec both offer revolutionary capabilities that enable
health care providers to leverage modern telecommunications networks
to provide a higher quality of patient care — and to lower the
delivery cost of that care."
Bell created the initial concept design for the network portion of
the test and identified HaiVision as being most capable of supplying
the high-performance codec required. As part of the test, the team
from Titan Medical and Bell will experiment with video quality in
order to define the minimum acceptable bandwidth use, and thus the
minimum transmission costs, for this telesurgery model.
Amadeus represents the first next-generation robotic surgery device
that will be telesurgery-capable. The four-armed surgical system
will initially be used to enable surgeons to train other surgeons
over dedicated networks. As the procedural type and volume increase,
the Titan Medical system will enable health care centers to provide
a greater number of patients better access to a greater number of
expert surgeons.
Complete information on HaiVision products, including recent case
studies and application notes, is available at
www.haivision.com/account/downloads/.
About Titan Medical
Titan Medical Inc. is a Canadian public company (TSX VENTURE: TMD)
focused on the development and commercialization of robotic surgical
technologies. The company is currently developing Amadeus®, a
next-generation four-armed robotic surgical system, with the
objective of enabling surgeons to remotely manipulate surgical
instruments. Robotic surgery has developed over the past 10 years
into a proven and growing method of treatment. The global robotic
surgical market size is currently estimated to be $3.4 billion with
potential for placement of 6,000 robotic surgical systems. The
company is researching and developing innovative technologies to
empower surgeons to use robots in the operating room of the future.
More information is available at www.titanmedicalinc.com.
About Bell Canada
Bell is Canada’s largest communications company, providing consumers
with solutions to all their communications needs, including
telephone services, wireless communications, high-speed Internet,
digital television, and voice over IP. Bell also offers integrated
information and communications technology (ICT) services to
businesses and governments and is the Virtual Chief Information
Officer (VCIO) to small and medium businesses (SMBs). Bell delivers
healthcare solutions to the Canadian Healthcare market through the
Bell Health, Centre for Healthcare Innovation. Bell is proud to be a
Premier National Partner and the exclusive Telecommunications
Partner to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. More information is available at
www.bell.ca.
About HaiVision Systems Inc.
Based in Montreal, Canada, HaiVision Systems Inc. is a private
company and a world leader in delivering the most advanced video
networking technology. HaiVision’s products are deployed worldwide
within the foremost TelePresence suites and boardrooms, in
healthcare facilities for video collaboration and training, for
continuous presence distance education and remote learning, and
within broadcast for remote interviews, IPTV, and content
distribution. |
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