Image Compression with Bubble-Aware Frame Rate Adaptation for Energy-Efficient Video Capsule Endoscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces an energy-efficient image compression and frame rate adaptation method for Video Capsule Endoscopy, reducing data transmission and energy use while maintaining diagnostic quality.

Contribution

It presents a novel compression pipeline and bubble-aware frame rate adaptation that identify low-value frames without extra analysis, enhancing VCE efficiency.

Findings

Achieved a compression ratio of 5.748 with negligible quality loss.

Reduced system energy consumption by 20.58%.

Decreased energy use during low-visibility frames by up to 40%.

Abstract

Video Capsule Endoscopy (VCE) is a promising method for improving the medical examination of the small intestine in the gastrointestinal tract. A key challenge is their limited size, resulting in a short battery lifetime which conflicts with high energy consumption for image capturing and transmission to an on-body device. Thus, we propose an image compression pipeline that substantially reduces the transmitted data while preserving diagnostic image quality. Furthermore, we exploit characteristics of the compression process to identify frames with low diagnostic value mainly caused by bubbles, without requiring additional image analysis. For low-visibility frames, a dynamic bubble-aware frame rate adaptation strategy reduces image acquisition and transmission during these phases while preserving sensitivity to potential anomalies. The proposed compression and frame rate adaptation are evaluated on a RISC-V platform using the Kvasir-Capsule and Galar datasets. The compression method achieves a compression ratio of 5.748 (82.6%) at a peak signal-to-noise ratio of 40.3 dB, indicating negligible loss of visual quality. The compression accomplished a mean energy reduction of the whole system by 20.58%. Additionally, the proposed bubble-aware frame rate adaptation reduced the energy consumption by up to 40%. These results demonstrate the potential of our method to increase the applicability of VCE.