NXP and Elix Collaboration Enables Volume Medical Streaming

A customer came to Elix Systems  with an advanced medical imaging challenge. They were developing a mixed-reality system to simplify and accelerate clinical procedures by augmenting a medical practitioner’s real-world vision with clinical imaging systems (ultrasound, x-ray).

Their challenge was multi-fold. They had to minimize the latency between image acquisition and display for the Microsoft HoloLens, while acquiring image outputs from diverse devices and vendors. The size and weight had to be reduced, while simultaneously decreasing overall costs with a custom design. The team also needed to provide a complete product with manuals and graphical design—all while meeting the design and ramp up production volumes of the device in less than 6 months.

Achieving Required Latency

Initially, the customer was working with a bulky off-the-shelf computer and faced extreme difficulties with sourcing. As they were extending from a first-generation prototype into an optimized product, they reached out to Elix Systems to propose a productized solution for their streaming device.

The design of the device had to be in accordance with the medical device requirements for a CE device: IEC 60601-1-2 and IEC 60601-1-6.

Achieving the required latency was essential for a smooth user experience and for the solution to be accepted by medical practitioners.

Leverage NXP's i.MX 8M Plus Applications Processor

NXP’s i.MX 8M Plus Processors is recognized as an efficient and cost-conscious solution for video encoding. The processor also features embedded high-performance encoding algorithms. With the Elix Systems solution based on the NXP i.MX 8M Plus Processors, Elix was able to surpass the customer latency requirements of 120ms by achieving 80ms glass to Hololens glass latency over a wireless network. The video pipeline consisted of HDMI input to h.265 or h.264 encoding to real-time streaming protocol (RTSP) over the wireless network—then decode and playback on the Hololens.

Elix Systems was a forerunner in the integration of the NXP i.MX 8M Plus Processors for video streaming and could rapidly demonstrate the solution, thanks to existing NXP i. MX 8M Plus products - in particular the Comm-X streaming card. This enabled jumpstarting the project and the preparation of the final product design.

Create Volume Streaming Devices for Medical

The collaboration between NXP and Elix Systems resulted in a volume-manufactured streaming device for medical applications. A cost-effective solution that enables low-latency video streaming finished in six months, from inception to product launch.

i.MX 8M Plus applications processor is a video powerhouse that enabled us to achieve a stellar 80ms glass-to-glass video streaming latency. We beat our customer’s expectations both in terms of technology and time to market.

CEO Eric Chaubert

About Elix Systems

Founded in 2020, Elix Systems   was created by an experienced engineering team who shared a passion for autonomous flying vehicles. The seasoned engineering team leverages their solid background in video processing, security and human-machine interface (HMI) to develop electronics systems for highly demanding industries such as aerospace, defense and medical.