The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has taken a step towards harnessing augmented reality in military telemedicine services.
It has signed a £625,000 contract with Proximie, a specialist in the field, for a digital platform to support the use of AR by surgical teams. The company will provide an integration route across encrypted military communications systems.
The MoD had specified the need for a ‘reach in’ capability using mixed or augmented reality, enabling an advising surgeon to provide the surgeon in the field with visualised annotation or directions when treating patients.
The product will also allow the real time overlay of diagnostics in digital form, such as X-rays, to support both the active and advisory surgeons.
Cloud and off-the-shelf
It will also support the use of cloud connected devices operating through military communications networks. The MoD had specified that any the platform should work with off-the-shelf equipment, although it will provide the specialist network hardware and the integration with existing communications systems.
The technical specifications are that any screens should provide a minimum visual quality of 480 dots per inch for both surgeons, with a bandwidth requirement no higher than 2Mbps. It will also have a packet delay of just 600 milliseconds round trip time.
All data will be encrypted at source, in transit and in storage, and handled in line with General Data Protection Regulation and Caldicott Guardian requirements. The data will be stored on UK sovereign territory.
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