2016 Conference on Advances in Signal Processing (CASP)
Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune. Jun 9-11, 2016
Telemedicine Mobile System
Pranit Pol
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication
Engineering
TSSM’s BSCOER, Narhe, Pune
pranitpol@gmail.com
Abstract— Virtual medical instrumentation plays a vital role
in a telemedicine system that obtains data from the medical
instrument, required by doctors at remote location to diagnose a
patient. The work proposed in this paper facilitates doctors’ to
provide medical treatment for the patients at far end. In the
proposed system alpha- numeric data is acquired from the
display of medical instrument. An image processing method
called optical character recognition (OCR) is used to extract the
reading from the display automatically. This data is then stored
using DBMS and published on webpage. Experimental result
shows the recognition rate of 96.6% for 60 test images.
Keywords- Telemedicine, OCR, DBMS, MySQL, LabVIEW
I. INTRODUCTION
Telemedicine mobile system refers to a system that integrates
software and hardware to form a usable medical device on
computer. It provides user friendly interface and extensive
tools to interface, model, process and display virtually any
instrument. Telemedicine refers to the application of medical
data and information which is transferred from one location to
another over a communication medium.
T. Xin et al. [5] developed a mixed type wireless
telemedicine monitor centre system using LabVIEW, a
general packet radio service (GPRS) and Digital Signal
Processor (DSP). A telemedicine central unit receives patient
vital signs which were captured and transmitted by a PDA
over the internet using GPRS and also by DSP boards over
LAN. Y. Lin [6] described an automatic instrumental reading
system using CMOS camera and neural network. In this work
the system performs OCR algorithm together with self-
learning back propagation neural network to process the image
captured. Ghugardare et al. [7] carried a similar research to
obtain seven-segment display reading using OCR.
In our work doctors can obtain the data/ history from
the medical instrument display through the proposed
telemedicine system to diagnose a patient at remote locations.
The proposed system can be implemented at public health
centers and small hospitals in rural areas to seek treatment
from expert doctors for critically-ill patients.
The rest of the paper is arranged as follows: Section
II describes the system architecture. In Section III details of
implementation methodology is discussed. Section IV depicts
the experimental setup and Section V shows experimental
results. Conclusions are presented in Section VI.
978-1-5090-0849-0/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Ashwini M. Deshpande
Department of Electronics and Telecommunication
Engineering
Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune
ashwini.deshpande@cumminscollege.in
II. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of the telemedicine system
architecture.
Fig. 1 System Architecture
Initially virtual medical instrument and OCR system are
designed and tested in LabVIEW. It is similar to acquiring
LCD readings from the medical instrument’s LCD display in
real-time.
In a mechanical enclosure the USB camera (1.3 MP
webcam) is placed in front of the LCD display of medical
instrument (e.g. blood pressure monitor). In this enclosure
appropriate lighting arrangement is provided additionally for
proper visualization of readings on the display. A webcam is
connected to a computer through USB port. Local computer
hosts the LabVIEW software which includes Vision Assistant
add-on that is required for processing the image acquired
previously. Vision Assistant contains Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) training module which is essential for
translating medical instrument readings from image to data.
As the image feed is coming in from USB camera, LabVIEW
captures images of the medical instrument LCD and at the
same time the OCR system performs the conversion in real-
time. Thus both operations are performed simultaneously/at
the same time. The data obtained is stored in the database and
also in the excel file for external usage. This file is used by the
graphical user interface (GUI) to display the medical
instrument’s data and other information related to patient.
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 III. IMPLEMENTATION METHODOLOGY
A. Image acquisition
In image acquisition process an image is acquired with a
camera. While camera captures an image, some information
from the captured might be lost due to low light exposure or
camera misfocus. To recover the information loss and to
restore the original image some pre-processing steps in image
processing and appropriate machine vision tools are used.
The proposed system uses IMAQ; image acquisition
library in LabVIEW to acquire image from camera. Fig. 2
shows image of acquired blood pressure monitor display.

Fig 3. Code for Image Processing

C. OCR TRAINING

Training the OCR system requires capturing the LCD display

image repeatedly until the system will be able to recognize a
character accurately. For this purpose, OCR for LCD display
is trained separately. Each time an image is processed, the
system outputs the instrument’s LCD reading in the data
format which is compared with an OCR database. If the data is
incorrect, the corrected value is updated to OCR system
database in order to learn the specific pattern of each
character. After training the OCR repeatedly for specific
number it starts displaying the character accurately. Fig. 4
shows the LabVIEW OCR methodology used.

Fig. 2 Image Acquisition

B. Image Processing
The image captured by USB camera is processed by
LabVIEW Vision Assistant module. This module is
configured to search for characters on the LCD display of the
medical instrument as shown in Fig. 2. Vision Assistant OCR
system converts the image into grey scale to differentiate dark
and light pixels. Thresholding is then applied to convert the
image to binary image. LabVIEW OCR intelligence system
then creates a histogram with peak for maximum density of
Fig. 4 OCR methodology
dark pixels compared to light pixels density and valley for
their absence. The corresponding character is then segmented
D. Post Processing
from the peak and the result is shown on the ‘Text Read’ tab
on LabVIEW OCR system. The image is then compared with
The image is then compared with a database of pre-trained
a database of pre-trained character image stored in the OCR
character image stored in the OCR system to recognize the
system. Fig. 3 shows code for image processing in LabVIEW.
character it represents. The characters recognized are stored in
the database and transmitted over internet for generation of
medical report.

485
E. Database Management and Report

Database Management System (DBMS) consists of software

that organizes the storage of data. A DBMS controls the
creation, maintenance and use of the database storage
structures of organizations and of their end users. It allows
organizations to place control of organization-wide database
development in the hands of Database Administrators (DBAs)
and other specialists. In large systems, a DBMS allows users
and other software to store and retrieve data in a structured Fig 6.Top View of Experimental Setup
way. This system uses MySQL as DBMS and LabVIEW
Database connectivity toolkit for database management and A camera is connected to the computer equipped with a
reporting. The report is also produced in MS Excel format. telemedicine system software and a graphical user interface
Fig. 5 shows the code for database management. (GUI).

Fig. 5 Code for Database Management

Fig. 7 Side View of Experimental Set Up
F. Web Publication

A telemedicine mobile system can be accessed and controlled V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

externally over some communication medium. This system
runs locally on a LabVIEW platform with an ability to be
monitored and controlled over the internet through a web
browser. In our system the telemedicine server is connected to
a computer through host computer via internet.
The client can be any computer or mobile connected
to the Internet running a simple browser. Once connected, the
client will see the same front panel as the local host and avails
the same program functionality.
Once the LabVIEW OCR system is trained and able to
accurately recognize characters on instrument LCD screens
separately, it is combined into one complete system. The OCR
reading data is compared with the display on medical
instruments’ LCD and the result is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Comparison of OCR and LCD Readings

IV. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 show an experimental setup- a mechanical

enclosure which consists of a USB camera, a light source (for
arranging proper lighting conditions) and a blood pressure
monitor.

The result shows that the system is able to correctly recognize

the characters on the display of medical instrument, which
shows that the LabVIEW OCR system is trained adequately.
The surrounding ambient light does not affect the system’s
accuracy as the USB camera and LCD screens are enclosed
inside a box. The converted OCR data is recognized and

486
transmitted over the internet by GUI. The telemedicine mobile
system transmission is tested on both broadband and dial-up
internet connection. This system is able to work at acceptable
rate in most broadband and narrowband internet.
The proposed system is tested on the set of 60 test
images, out of which 58 images matches with OCR readings.
Thus recognition rate of our system is 96.6%. Experimental
results show successful implementation of a telemedicine
mobile system with accuracy and reliability.
Fig. 9 GUI of Telemedicine Mobile System
Fig. 9 depicts the proposed GUI of a Telemedicine Mobile
System, while Fig. 10 shows GUI for main console. The GUI
designed for the system provides ease of access and control
for the user.
Fig. 10 GUI of Main Console
IV. CONCLUSIONS
The work presented in this paper describes a method of
obtaining medical instrument’s LCD readings using LabVIEW
Vision Assistant and OCR modules. The usage of LabVIEW
487
in this work considerably reduced the time required to create a
working system. Moreover, the system is proven to be
accurate and reliable in long run. This is essential to ensure
flawless operation of the proposed telemedicine mobile
system. This paper also highlights necessity of appropriate
arrangement of the LCD display and camera positioning and
also sufficient LabVIEW OCR system training.
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