Evaluation of a wearable tele-echography robot system: FASTele in a vehicle using a mobile network

This paper shows the focused assessment with sonography for trauma (FAST) performance of a wearable tele-echography robot system we have developed that we call “FASTele”. FAST is a first-step way of assessing the injury severity of patients suffering from internal bleeding who may be some time away from hospital treatment. So far, we have only verified our system´s effectiveness under constantly wired network conditions. To determine its FAST performance within an emergency vehicle, we extended it to a WiMAX mobile network and performed experiments on it. Experiment results showed that paramedics could attach the system to FAST areas on a patient´s body on the basis of the attaching position and procedure. We also assessed echo images to confirm that the system is able to extract the echo images required for FAST under maximum vehicle acceleration.