Developing a Tricrystalline 4K Medical Endoscope System Based on RK3588
The Chinese Endoscope Industry Embraces Technological Innovation
The endoscope industry in China is currently experiencing a wave of technological innovation. The trend in endoscope technology development aims to make medical services more convenient, efficient, and intelligent. With the growing demand for domestic production and intelligence, medical endoscopes are undergoing iterative upgrades and reaching a development peak. The characteristics of the RK3588 chip are particularly well-suited to the technical requirements of endoscopes. This article will analyze the technical advantages of the RK3588 chip and briefly explain the technical solution for building a tricrystalline 4K medical endoscope system using RK3588.
RK3588 Meets the Technical Requirements of New Generation Medical Endoscope Systems
Application of Remote Control Technology
With the rapid development of telemedicine, remote control technology has also been introduced into endoscope technology. In the future, doctors will be able to remotely operate endoscopes through remote control technology, which not only helps diagnose and treat remote patients but also improves the coverage and efficiency of medical services.
Clearer Imaging
4K medical endoscopes have become a trend, with more and more new products adopting 4K imaging systems. The RK3588 has built-in dual 8K VPU and 48M ISP, supporting not only 4K@120fps video encoding but also 8K video encoding and decoding, with static images up to 48M, providing sufficient performance support.
Application of Intelligent Technology
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other intelligent technologies are also being applied to endoscopes. The RK3588 has a built-in independent triple-core NPU that provides 6TOPS computing power support, with a comprehensive computing power exceeding 10TOPS, capable of running various terminal AI models. Through these technologies, endoscopes can achieve more accurate and rapid diagnosis and treatment, improving medical standards and efficiency.
Miniaturization and Portability
To facilitate easier carrying and operation, medical endoscope equipment may become more miniaturized and portable. This will greatly improve the utilization and efficiency of endoscopes while also reducing medical costs. The ARM-based RK3588 series chips have excellent energy efficiency, and the RK3588S chip is specially designed for mobile platforms, making it very suitable for the development of portable medical endoscopes.
Networking and Cloud Integration
In the future, medical endoscopes may become more networked and cloud-integrated. By connecting to cloud platforms, doctors can achieve real-time data transmission and sharing, thereby enhancing the efficiency and quality of medical services. The RK3588 comes with a gigabit Ethernet port and supports WiFi7 and 5G mobile network high-speed transmission design, fully meeting the data transmission requirements of new-generation endoscopes.
RK3588 Supports Multiple Sensor Synchronous Input for Building Tricrystalline Module 4K Medical Endoscope Systems
RK3588 supports multiple sensors accessing simultaneously. In 4K scenarios, it can handle three 4K sensors inputting simultaneously. The tricrystalline CMOS sensor is small in size, low in power consumption, and can faithfully reproduce realistic colors and clear details of intracavity tissues, providing assurance for doctors’ safe surgery and precise operations.
Tricrystalline imaging module technology effectively prevents color aliasing and provides better color gradation compared to single-chip technology. This is because a single chip has only one photosensitive chip that processes the scene all at once; the tricrystalline system can separately sense the red, blue, and green primary colors and process them separately, ensuring color authenticity and making the image more natural. The independent color processing greatly reduces color mixing and interference between colors.
Powerful Image Processing Capabilities Fully Meeting 4K Image Processing Requirements
RK3588 supports 4K video encoding and 4K video output display. The clarity of the 4K imaging system is four times that of 1080P, and with the point-to-point display of the monitor, all details are fully visible. RK3588 has two independent ISPs built-in, fully meeting various post-processing needs such as HDR, noise reduction, sharpening, and image correction.
The 4K ultra-high-definition endoscope camera system restores colors to match the color of the photographed object, with high color restoration, strong transparency, and closer to human visual perception. It clearly displays organ tissues with pure colors and distinct layers, supports high color reproduction, and enhances surgical safety.
Developing endoscope products using RK3588 not only provides sufficient redundancy design for 4K imaging systems but also lays the foundation for 8K products. Both VPUs of the RK3588 are 8K VPUs, supporting hardware encoding and decoding of 8K video, and simultaneous encoding and decoding. Currently, there are more and more choices for 8K sensors, and with the development of the industry, the transition to 8K is an inevitable trend.
RK3588’s Rich IP Can Meet the Diverse Scenario Requirements of Medical Endoscopes
Multiple Operating Systems
RK3588 supports operating systems such as Linux, Harmony OS, Ubuntu, UOS, Debian, Kylin OS, Android, etc., and can provide SDK support to industry customers, fully meeting the application layer development needs of industry customers. Domestic operating systems are a plus in some bid specifications.
Rich Functional Extensibility
In addition to multiple video inputs and multi-screen display functions, RK3588 also has rich hardware interfaces such as UART, USB, PCIe, SPI, IIC, GPIO, etc., which can meet functional requirements in different scenarios, enrich product lines, and reduce development risks.
AI Extension Capability
Besides its own AI computing power, it can also integrate third-party AI acceleration chips with flexible hardware design. Integrated design improves stability, while modular design allows for flexible replacement of acceleration modules. Additionally, Rockchip officially provides AI development tools for easy and quick training and deployment of AI models.
AI has huge advantages in image processing, and machine vision is increasingly widely applied in the medical field. As a long-term use product, medical endoscopes can fully utilize end-user data to train AI models and better assist doctors in decision-making, which not only becomes a core competitive advantage of the product but also makes a huge social contribution to the popularization of medical resources.
Multiple Product Forms
RK3588 is a large chip with multiple IP integration, having not only excellent image processing capabilities, AI capabilities, and general computing performance but also rich functional interfaces, which allows RK3588 to meet the development needs of multiple product forms. Such as small portable medical endoscopes, notebook endoscopes, integrated imaging and host system endoscope systems, multi-screen heterogeneous display endoscope systems, remote collaborative endoscope systems, etc.
For brand manufacturers, developing a series of products using the same chip and the same platform environment can greatly reduce development investment and risks, enhancing product competitiveness.
Conclusion
As a domestically produced SoC with an 8nm process, RK3588 is very powerful, and its rich IP design has great development potential in the medical endoscope industry, especially for building tricrystalline 4K endoscope systems. If you have new product plans, you can fully consider this chip. If you have development needs, you can click to submit.
