Olympus and NTT Start World’s First Demonstration Experiment of Cloud Endoscopy System

Olympus Corporation and NTT Corporation have begun a joint demonstration experiment for a cloud endoscopy system that enables real-time image processing of endoscopes on the cloud. 
 
The system will use Olympus’ advanced technology for endoscopes for image processing, which is typically done within the endoscopic equipment, on a remote cloud. Images can be processed in real-time on the cloud due to NTT’s IOWN APN technology [1, 2].
 
Through the experiment, Olympus and NTT plan to establish a reference model for the commercialization of the cloud endoscopy system, overcome the current limitations of processing performance of endoscopic equipment, and improve maintainability while providing a flexible and rapid market response to the market.
 
The use of endoscopes is increasing year by year due to their low level of invasiveness and high safety levels. While they are becoming increasingly sophisticated, endoscopes have performance and maintenance limitations. More cases are expected to require flexible feature improvements and updates, such as real-time remote diagnosis and treatment. Hence the discussion and experiment on cloud computing endoscopes. 
 
These systems could run high processing load functions, such as image processing, on the cloud. In sharing the processing load on cloud-built-in data centers, users can receive the latest functions through software updates which enable real-time remote diagnosis and treatment by sharing video information among multiple hospitals. 
 
Olympus and NTT started experiments centered on IOWN APN to solve technical problems in the network. The experiment will construct an environment where an endoscope and GPU server are connected by IOWN APN. Verifications that can be carried out include:

• The processing delay associated with the cloud does not occur by connecting the endoscope and the server simulating the cloud via an optical transmission path with high speed and low latency.

• Information security can be ensured by encrypting information between the endoscope and the cloud using secure optical transport network technology [3], which is difficult to attack even using quantum computers.

• The system can achieve the high reliability and availability required for medical devices, including fallback in the event of a network failure.

 
References:
 
1 Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN)
The IOWN is comprised of three components: the “All Photonics Network (APN),” which makes it possible not only for networks but also for terminal processing; the “Digital Twin Computing,” which enables advanced and real-time interaction between objects and humans in cyberspace; and the “Cognitive Foundation,” which efficiently deploys various ICT resources.
 
2 All Photonics Network (APN)
By introducing new optical technologies from the network to terminals and chips, APN achieves ultra-low power consumption and ultra-high-speed processing, which has been difficult to achieve. By assigning wavelengths to each function on a single optical fiber, we can provide multiple functions that support our social infrastructure, including information and communication functions such as the Internet and sensing functions, without interfering with each other.
 
3 Secure Optical Transport Network Technology
Technology for realizing secure information communication even in the age of quantum computers by sharing a common key between optical transmission devices using Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and encrypting the communication with the key.
https://www.rd.ntt/e/research/JN202111_16202.html