SBIR Phase I: QoS guaranteed VTC for telemedicine over broadband IP networks

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will research, develop, and deliver an unsurpassed high performance video teleconferencing (VTC) system in software, based on Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) protocols and the growing Quality of Service (QoS)- provisioning IP architecture. This VTC system will be specifically designed for premier telemedicine application over broadband IP networks in the USA and throughout the world, and will provide a great help for achieving ``Healthy People 2010' by reducing the cost of health care for both the providers and patients, extending the high-quality services otherwise limited by location and time. Specifically, this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to (a) design and analyze improved transport mechanisms for real-time interactive telemedicine oriented VTC, as well as control and management mechanisms of IP networks with some measures of QoS guarantees; (b) design high-speed high performance, error resilient, and network-friendly layered video coding and transmission scheme; (c) analyze the interaction between the VTC transport mechanism and the IP network.s service provisioning mechanisms to find the best feasible combination, and explore, in particular, the relationship between the importance-based video layering and the network.s methods of differentiating the QoS grades. The commercial applications of the project are premier telemedicine services at low cost required by health care providers and patients, as well as high quality VTC services required by government organizations and corporations.