a tele-home care system exploiting the digital terrestrial television

P.Randaccio Telematics and Robotics for the Quality of Life of the Elderly

A Tele-home Care System Exploiting the Digital Terrestrial Television

Paolo Randaccio

Università di Cagliari

Dipartimento di Fisica

Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare

Sezione di Cagliari


The digital TV : Video+Audio+Applications

The digital TV signal transmits not only moving pictures and sounds, it carries also data, like EPG or Java code for some interactive applications.

Video, Audio and Data are compressed in a MPEG2Transport Stream

The decoder must select the TS and decompress video, audio and data

The typical applications in digital TV are videogames, learning, and tele-home care

Video encoder

Audio encoder

Data encoder

ES M

UX

TS M

UXVideo encoder

Audio encoder

Data encoder

ES M

UX Splitter

MUX adaptionenergy dispersal

Externalencoder

Externalinterleaver

Internalencoder

Internalinterleaver

MUX adaptionenergy dispersal

Externalencoder

Externalinterleaver

Internalencoder

MPEG-2

Mapper

Frame adaption

OFDMGuardinterval

D/Aconversion

Frontend

AntennaVHF/UHF

TPS andPilot signal


Why this project

The decoder (or Set Top Box or STB) for the reception of the digital TV signal is a real computer.

It can execute programs, and can be interfaced with external appliances and can connect to the web.

It is simple to use, cheaper than a normal computer, and is common to every household.

The installation of the application programs and their updates are done directly from the TV broadcaster.

Moreover, the decoders are equipped with a smart card reader for identification of the patient (the TV viewer) avoiding the need to insert any user Id or password.

These features make this instrument ideal for tele-home care for the elder people who are less skilled with computers, but are familiar with the television.


Set Top Box = Computer

WWW

The Decoder (or Set Top Box) is a real computer with an operating system, a file system and a programming language

It uses the TV set as a monitor and the remote control as a keyboard

The MHP (interactive) models are equipped with a modem to connect to the web


Server DVB -T

Modulator

UHF Amplifier

Radio Link

Transmission network

UHF

Set Top Box

ModemTCP - IP

Central clinic Server

Patient

ECG

Doctor

NIBP

Patient Home

DBV-T Production center

Applications development HW & SW

Xlets (JavaTV)

System overview


At Patient home

The Patient is supplied with:

1.A Base Station2.Medical

Devices3.A Smart Card4.In most of the

cases also a Set Top Box with right features

The Patient has to connect to the channel transmitting the Tele-home

care service and activate the interactive application


We are on broadcast The local TV broadcaster Videolina

gave us the opportunity to test Telehomecare application developed at our department. We own the logic channel 53

Pressing the red button on the telecontrol you have access to the tele-home care menu: ECG, NIBP, SPO2, Glucosimetry, Weight meter


At Patient home

The patient can watch the TV program (in this case just a still picture!) during biomedical parameter acquisition* … if he changes the TV channel the application doesn’t end!


The simplest analysis: measuring the blood pressure

During the acquisition one can visualize the graphical representation of the pressure inside the sphygmomanometer cuff. At the end, the maximun and minimum pressure and the cardiac frequency are shown.


Each device has its connection, its protocol, its timing

Typical connections are serial (both TTL and RS232), IRDA, PWM, or simply analog or digital signal

The Base Station must provide the hardware connection and the software to control and listen to each device

The Base Station: many biomedical devices interfaced to Set Top Box

Base Station

Set Top Box

TV set

ECGNIBP SPO2 Gluco

Balance


A prototype Base Station

On the top side the serial cable to the STB

A microcontroller (PIC) drives the data exchange and sets interface protocol

Some biomedical devices have a serial interface

But in many cases you have to provide a custom solution

Easy job for good designers


The choose of medical devices

1. Not made-by-yourself devices2. Simple commercial devices3. Easy to use and cheap4. Battery powered with long life5. Storage for measurements6. Clock and calendar for time

stamp7. Open interface (or easy to

understand) We found a set of devices with

above features


Let’s divide Medical Devices in two categories

On-line acquisition The medical device is a

slave of Set Top Box The STB drives the MD for

switching on, start acquisition, send data

The patient must be active during each phase and have to follow many steps

This is the case of our first prototypes, ECG and NIBP, made in our lab

Off-line acquisition The medical device is

independent during the acquisition

The MD store data into internal memory, multiple data can be stored for a long time

STB drives the MD just to read data

The patient must be active just to measure the biomedical data

This is the case in most MD, like glucosymeters and NIBPs (sphygmomanometers)

YES


Patient Smart Card

Purpose: patient identification, avoid abuse The SC stores few data:1. Service provider Phone number, login & PWD 2. Patient name, ID code3. MD interf. param., port, baud rate, … We produced the Smart Cards ourselves

because our regional government did not provide them

The file system of our Smart Card emulates the Italian CNS (Carta Nazionale dei Servizi)

Our SC can be used just for test purposes


Patient identification through SC

The application running on the Set Top Box reads data from Smart Card after its insertion on the SC reader

Personal data are copied into the STB File System in a non volatile memory (\flashusr\persistent\oid\aid)

We don’t forsee a PIN code, at least for this application

The SC stores Internet connection parametes (service provider phone number, log, pwd, home page) and MD’s configuration (port, baud rate)


Web data exchange There are many protocols

to interface computers on the web

We choose HTTP, the data exchange is made by statements like this:

www.sctm.it/ServerPEC.asp?Patient=803800011324&Code=31&Value1=122&Value2=75&Value3=68

This is the GET mode, otherwhise you can use POST mode

Cryptography? Not yet

Set Top Box

InternalModem

Remote Server

The web

The operating system of Set Top Box has the Java classes to access the web through an analog modem

RCManager.Connect(this); URL url1 = new URL(URLaddr); HttpURLConnection …

url1.openConnection();

http://www.sctm.it/ServerPEC.asp?Patient=803800011324&Code=31&Value1=122&Value2=75&Value3=68














Patient Server Doctor

On a MHP decoder an analog modem is present which functions as Return Channel (RC)

The RC makes a connection to the web through a service provider

The connection to the server is made using GET or POST methods to send identification data of the patient

After the patient identification, the biomedical data are transmitted

At the end of the transaction the Server sends an e-mail to the patient’s Doctor with biomedical data and a link to a web page where the data analysis are presented in a graphical form

The Doctor can visualize the historical data of his patients by browsing the web site .


All the analysis can be viewed on the web page


The Doctor interface

Among the web pages accessed by the doctor there is a dynamic Java Applet

The doctor can see in a graphical form the recent history of the patient

He can find relevant changes from the clinical point of view


Not only tele-home care …

Among the objectives for the care of the elderly there is also food for the brainThe games requiring reasoning are good instruments for this purposeThe DVB-T decoder can substitute the PC for developing videogames which do not require fast manouvres, just thinking


Solitaire, a relaxing game

The game is played with the coloured keys, arrows and OK button on the TV remote control


Acknowledgement from Italian Ministry of Health

Recently the AGENAS (National Agency for Public Health Services) has acknowledged our project as an emerging technologyThe aim is to inform the Public Health Services about efficient and innovative technolgies and support their introduction .


The INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) has supported the project as a technology transfer

The University of Cagliari gave the knowhow, under-graduate and graduate students.

The Department of Physics gave the infrastructure and resources Videolina has provided a TV channel @ITIM and Ghirlanda gave the knowhow on Smart Cards The CINECA of Bologna gave the knowhow and equipments for DVB-T OMRON, MENARINI e TAKEDA gave biomedical devices And finally we have the support of the local Health service (ASL 8 of

Cagliari)

Thanks for your attention

They didn’t leave us alone

a tele-home care system exploiting the digital terrestrial television

Documents

randaccio telematics

quality of life

tv set

tv channel

elderly set

tv viewer

tv program

patient homethe patient