Pfeiffer Jonas H, Kasparick Martin, Strathen Benjamin, Dietz Christian, Dingler Max E, Lueth Tim C, Timmermann Dirk, Radermacher Klaus, Golatowski Frank
Institute of Micro Technology and Medical Device Technology, Technical University of Munich, 85748 Garching, Germany.
Institute of Applied Microelectronics and Computer Engineering, University of Rostock, 18119 Rostock, Germany.
Biomed Tech (Berl). 2018 Feb 23;63(1):81-93. doi: 10.1515/bmt-2017-0016.
Today's landscape of medical devices is dominated by stand-alone systems and proprietary interfaces lacking cross-vendor interoperability. This complicates or even impedes the innovation of novel, intelligent assistance systems relying on the collaboration of medical devices. Emerging approaches use the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm based on Internet protocol (IP) to enable communication between medical devices. While this works well for scenarios with no or only soft timing constraints, the underlying best-effort communication scheme is insufficient for time critical data. Real-time (RT) networks are able to reliably guarantee fixed latency boundaries, for example, by using time division multiple access (TDMA) communication patterns. However, deterministic RT networks come with their own limitations such as tedious, inflexible configuration and a more restricted bandwidth allocation. In this contribution we overcome the drawbacks of both approaches by describing and implementing mechanisms that allow the two networks to interact. We introduce the first implementation of a medical device network that offers hard RT guarantees for control and sensor data and integrates into SOA networks. Based on two application examples we show how the flexibility of SOA networks and the reliability of RT networks can be combined to achieve an open network infrastructure for medical devices in the operating room (OR).
当今的医疗设备领域主要由缺乏跨厂商互操作性的独立系统和专有接口主导。这使得依赖医疗设备协作的新型智能辅助系统的创新变得复杂，甚至受到阻碍。新兴方法采用基于互联网协议（IP）的面向服务架构（SOA）范式，以实现医疗设备之间的通信。虽然这对于没有或只有软定时约束的场景效果良好，但底层的尽力而为通信方案对于时间关键型数据而言是不够的。实时（RT）网络能够可靠地保证固定的延迟边界，例如通过使用时分多址（TDMA）通信模式。然而，确定性RT网络有其自身的局限性，如配置繁琐、缺乏灵活性以及带宽分配更为受限。在本文中，我们通过描述和实现允许两种网络交互的机制，克服了这两种方法的缺点。我们介绍了首个医疗设备网络的实现，该网络为控制和传感器数据提供硬实时保证，并集成到SOA网络中。基于两个应用示例，我们展示了如何将SOA网络的灵活性和RT网络的可靠性相结合，以实现手术室（OR）中医疗设备的开放网络基础设施。
