Ali lies on the operating table connected to the Robotic machine which is connected to the 5G network. This system has a video monitor, audio stream, robotic arm. The system is operated by a teleoperator.
The training school with the training monitor is also connected to the same cloud network using the 5G network to view the procedure.
The Master Console system is located at the remote location of the surgeon who is able to control the robotic arm that does the surgery and issues audio commands for the doctors and nurses assisting them in the operation at Ali's hospital. The forward link transports real time commands to control motion and rotate the robotic arm of the teleoperator along with voice stream of the surgeon.
The feedback from the teleoperator at Ali's local hospital to the surgeon at a remote location is transporting real time multi modal sensing which includes: 3D stream, force feedback e.g. pressure, tactile feedback e.g. tissue mechanical properties and patient's physiological data such as blood pressure, heart rate along with voice stream from assistant nurses, anaesthetists and other collaborating surgeons by the patient's side.
The performance of the telesurgery largely depends on communication latency, jitter and packet loss, these communication QoS requirements of multi-modal sensory data in telesurgery are important to be considered in a 5G network and typical figures taken based on research
[22] are suggested here.
The following are potential requirement taken from
[22] to support this use case. The 5G system shall support the following QoS values:
Privacy and confidentiality
With the use of electronic systems, confidentiality might be at risk and special measures must be taken in order to prevent improper communication of medical data. In situations like transmission of scan results, especially in cases of ultrasound scans supplementary measures must be taken. The doctors providing the medical services from the distance must make sure that the patient consented for this information to be transmitted via electronic systems
[23].
Each equipment involved in image generation and processing, display, motion control and haptic feedback is synchronized thanks to a common clock either external or provided by the 5G system. The synchronization is often achieved through dedicated protocols such as e.g. PTP version 2 and allows to e.g. guarantee the consistency of the haptic feedback and displayed images at the master console, or enable the recording and offline replay of the whole procedure.