In modern cities, the medical rescue system is crucial for urban safety. Emergency centers command rescue operations, essential for saving lives. With the advancement of IoT technology, many cutting-edge technologies are gradually integrated into the medical emergency system, enabling ambulances to be networked, digitized, and intelligent. Thus, 5G smart ambulances emerge. 5G-enhanced ambulances look similar to regular ones in appearance. However, by integrating 5G networks into the vehicle, developers instantly endowed it with additional "superpowers".

For instance, 5G-enhanced ambulances can achieve synchronized transmission of multiple high-definition live videos, leveraging 5G's high bandwidth, low latency, and reliability. Based on this, it can synchronously return the medical images, patient signs, illness records and other information of emergency patients to the hospital emergency center without damage, which is convenient for the emergency center to grasp the patient's condition in advance and give professional guidance to the rescuers on the bus.

Forlinx's 5G Smart Gateway FCU2303 provides reliable support for medical ambulance.

Rapid transmission of information

Bridge the gap for medical device information transmission.

Modern ambulances are equipped with advanced medical equipment such as electrocardiogram monitors, ventilators, and defibrillators to enhance rescue efficiency. Various types of diagnostic and therapeutic equipment can efficiently transmit physiological data to the Hospital Information System (HIS) through the multiple Ethernet ports, serial ports, and DI/DO of the FCU2303 industrial-grade smart gateway. This meets the data collection and transmission requirements of ambulances.

Enabling high-definition audio and video consultations

Medical imaging equipment such as cameras, microphones, displays, and ultrasound machines are deployed on the ambulance. Through the FCU2303 industrial-grade smart gateway, information is transmitted, providing real-time, lossless transmission of audio-visual images from the ambulance to the hospital emergency center. This setup offers a high-bandwidth, low-latency, and highly connected secure network, meeting the remote video consultation needs of the ambulance. It aims to secure more time for patients by implementing a rapid rescue and treatment mode where patients essentially “Be in the hospital” upon boarding the ambulance.

Enabling reliable integration of multiple technologies

• FCU2303 Smart Gateway, designed based on the NXP LS1046A processor, features a quad-core CPU with a high clock frequency of 1.8GHz. With a fanless design, it ensures stable operation of medical rescue systems for extended periods in environments ranging from -40°C to +85°C;
• It supports 5G and 4G modules, which can be easily switched with a single DIP switch. It provides users with high bandwidth, low latency, and large connectivity services. It also supports dual-band Wi-Fi, enabling both STA and AP modes;
• FCU2303 supports expandable device storage with PCIe 3.0 high-speed interface, enabling support for solid-state drives (SSDs) using the NVMe protocol (M.2 interface). This meets the requirements for small size, large capacity, and fast speed;
• It comes standard with 8 x Gigabit Ethernet ports (flexible configuration of 2/4/6/8 ports, all with independent MAC addresses), 4 RS485 ports, 4 RS485/RS232 multiplexing interfaces, 2 DI (Digital Input), 2 DO (Digital Output), and 1 USB HOST 3.0 port. This ensures the connectivity of various medical devices, enabling full vehicle networking for ambulances;
• The software integrates a variety of third-party components including Samba, Lighttpd, Docker, IPSEC, OpenSSL, and Python 3 or higher versions. It supports protocols such as TCP/IP, UDP, DHCP, TFTP, FTP, Telnet, SSH, Web, HTTP, IPtables, and provides an open system API for easy user customization and development.

In the future, smart ambulances based on 5G technology will undoubtedly provide better full-process services for patients, including pre-diagnosis, during diagnosis, and post-diagnosis.

Forlinx Embedded FCU2303 Smart Gateway, which supports the 5G smart ambulance system, fully leverages the leading advantages of 5G technology, including high bandwidth, low latency, and large connectivity. It will undoubtedly effectively and efficiently guarantee the transmission of information for various medical devices. This will assist medical emergency centers in further improving the efficiency and service level of emergency rescue work, enhancing service quality, optimizing service processes and modes, and winning time for rescuing patients’ lives, thereby better-safeguarding health and life.