Quality of Experience for Telemedicine

Audio-visual data play a crucial role in many everyday systems and tools, as well as for many technological solutions developed within ESA projects. For this reason, assessing the quality of audio-visual parameters is of the utmost importance for the successful development and utilisation of their applications. This is even more critical for telemedicine systems, where audio-visual data can impact medical decisions. In such cases, the effectiveness of the system is dependent on its data being meaningful to the user (i.e. medical specialists). Therefore, ensuring the data is both of a high enough standard while remaining meaningful for the system users becomes crucial, sometimes even vital.

Background for Quality of Experience 

IP-based applications for telemedicine are becoming commonplace. However, such applications are often built using proprietary protocols and used in a shared-resources environment, which presents a challenge to test and validate their performance. The assessment of such audio-visual systems from a typical network Quality of Service (QoS) perspective is not a straightforward task. In addition, it does not directly reflect the final quality experienced by the user; commonly called the Quality of Experience (QoE). This is a major issue for telemedicine solution developers, as doctors must trust the technical solutions they have to use, and will not accept any system that complicates or compromises their diagnoses.

In order to take into consideration the users’ perception, the audio-video quality assessed by subjective tests. This is carried out by a set of users rating the audio-visual quality in normalised viewing conditions. These subjective tests result in the systems' Mean Opinion Score (MOS) which indicate what level of quality is experienced by the users, and can later be used to optimise audio-video quality estimators. However, this process is very time consuming, not easily replicated, context-dependent (for specific video content like surgery acts, opinions from specialists are required) and often not financially affordable. 

In order to overcome the aforementioned problem, the Technology and Research Programme (TRP) of the European Space Agency (ESA) has sponsored two parallel projects which have recently kicked-off: QuoTe, led by VTT (Finland) and TeleMediQual, led by AccepTV (France). 

QuoTe and TeleMediQual will seek to develop tools capable of providing an automatic MOS and other quality parameters that approximate results of the subjective audio-visual quality assessment of telemedicine systems, based on criteria and metrics that can be automatically and objectively measured and evaluated by a computer programme instead of a person. These tools will be fully validated in real environments and current ESA projects such as T4MOD – a telemedicine service for four European Ministries of Defence. 

QoE Project objectives 

The two QoE activities aim at developing a tool for audio and video Quality of Experience assessment by combining current state of the art technical system performance assessment and objective perceptual QoE assessment. The tools being developed will cover a set of key features, including the provision of:

• automatic system qualification for an audio-visual system (in particular, telemedicine systems) prior to operational deployment
• real-time QoE estimation of an audio-visual system’s quality (in particular, telemedicine systems) during operation
• QoE assessment parameters tailored to a specific set of media depending on the users and their medical specialities

Project Consortia 

The QuoTe project is carried out by VTT Technological Research Centre of Finland, which is highly active in applying Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Health and Wellbeing and has developed tools for Quality of Service and Quality of Experience. 

The TeleMediQual project is led by, a French SME specialised in QoE solutions for audio-visual services, working with the IVC team from IRCCyN, a French academic laboratory with expertise on QoE, and LISA, a French academic laboratory specialised in medical imaging in collaboration with Angers’ hospital as subcontractors. 

Project Status

Both projects have reached the Preliminary Design Review phase, which was the opportunity to present the preliminary design concept of the system. The two consortia have started working on the detailed design as well as performing preliminary developments towards prototypes.

ESA will improve the identification and tracking of seafaring vessels anywhere on Earth from 2018 under a public–private partnership with LuxSpace of Luxembourg and exactEarth of Canada, signed on 15 July during the Farnborough airshow.

Existing marine traffic control, which is based on radio links, is limited to coastal areas and even near shore can still have signal gaps. The system was originally developed to prevent collisions but it now also tracks ships to help prevent pollution, aids in the movement of dangerous goods and offers routine surveillance.

Large vessels and all passenger ships irrespective of size are mandated by the International Maritime Organization to carry Automatic Identification System (AIS) equipment. It transmits the course and speed as well as identification and position information to other vessels and shore stations.

While AIS has been deployed globally, it suffers from a major limitation because Earth’s curvature limits its horizontal range to about 74 km from shore. This means that AIS traffic information sent out by ship beacons is available only around coastal zones or on a ship-to-ship basis.

Satellites are the answer: the ship’s identity and position are recorded by satellite then sent to ground stations for processing and distribution.

ESA is promoting ‘SAT-AIS’ in partnership with the European Maritime Safety Agency to meet the requirements of users, particularly those of government agencies such as coastal administrations. 

The development contract for Phase-B2/CD of one SAT-AIS microsatellite with an option for a second was signed on 15 July at the UK’s Farnborough International Airshow by Magali Vaissiere, ESA’s Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, and Jochen Harms, Managing Director of the prime contractor, LuxSpace S.a.r.l. of Luxembourg.

“This programme is an excellent example of a public–private partnership, driven by industry, for the development and exploitation of a constellation of microsatellites,” noted Mrs Vaissiere.

For these next-generation services, LuxSpace will design and build the 60 x 60 x 70 cm, 100 kg microsatellite, aiming for launch in 2018.

“This programme is an important step for LuxSpace to further develop its product line for the global commercial and institutional market,” said Jochen Harms.

The Canadian operator exactEarth will be responsible for its mission definition, ground segment, launch and operation. The agreement between ESA and exactEarth was signed at Farnborough by Magali Vaissiere and Peter Mabson, President of exactEarth Ltd.

“This agreement represents a major milestone in the development of a leading-edge maritime monitoring system for Europe, establishing the groundwork for long term joint collaboration between ESA, LuxSpace and exactEarth,” commented Mr Mabson.

“Under this agreement, exactEarth is making major investments in Europe through its Harwell, UK subsidiary, exactEarth Europe, who will own and operate these satellites and develop advanced maritime applications for the global market.”

Patrick McLoughlin, UK Secretary of State for Transport, has announced, during a speech at RailLive 2014, the largest outdoor rail event in the UK, that two prizes of €50,000 have been awarded in the Space for Rail competition. Launched in October 2013, the competition was initiated and co-funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the UK rail industry’s Enabling Innovation Team (EIT) with support of the Satellite Applications Catapult and the  UK Technology Strategy Board. Prizes will be used to fund two feasibility studies as part of ESA’s Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programme.

The rail industry faces a challenge to be able to technically deliver a railway with more capacity and customer satisfaction but for less cost and carbon. To support this, the FutureRailway team is working with a range of partners to help de-risk business solutions and technologies by helping move them from research through prototype to demonstration and eventual implementation.

The Space for Rail prize competition sought outline proposals to develop services for the UK rail industry involving two or more satellite-based systems, such as communications, navigation and/or remote sensing, which would be integrated with conventional non-space systems. The aim is to develop solutions that either meet rail industry current challenges and needs which cannot otherwise be fulfilled, or improve upon existing solutions.

The two winners are:

1. University of Birmingham (UK) with Avanti Communications Ltd (UK) – Identification of Physical Railway Line Blockages in Support of Inspection and Recovery Operations

The proposed activity concerns the development of a service concept that provides cost effective, 24/7 identification of physical line blockages due to poor weather conditions. The study seeks to address two main challenges: a) Reliable use of satellite navigation signals and earth located antennae to detect  objects or infrastructure failures serious enough to block a railway line. b) Providing reliable communications and accompanying processes to enable robust decision making and effective targeting of resources for necessary response actions when line blockages are detected.

 2. VTOL Technologies Ltd. (UK) – Railway Inspection Supported by Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS)

The proposed integrated solution targets an RPAS aerial inspection capability specifically designed to meet the requirements of the UK rail industry, with inspection operations and inspection routes approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority. In support of this, the study will investigate whether the deployment of RPAS within the UK rail industry is technically feasible and could deliver substantial cost and process benefits for railway inspection and maintenance operations.

Following coordination between FutureRailway, the UK Technology Strategy Board and ESA’s IAP programme, the two winners of the UK Space for Rail Prize have been invited to submit full proposals for  feasibility studies to ESA. The activities, co-funded by ESA and FutureRailway, are anticipated to commence towards the end of 2014. Upon successful completion, the winners could use this as a stepping stone to the initiation of a larger-scale demonstration project.

The Space for Rail competition complements a portfolio of on-going activities by the ESA IAP programme in the rail sector. For more information, see: http://artes-apps.esa.int/projects/theme/transport-logistics