The new IEEE 11073 service-oriented device connectivity (SDC) standard proposals for networked point-of-care and surgical devices constitutes the basis for improved interoperability due to its independence of vendors. To accelerate the distribution of the standard a reference implementation is indispensable. However, the implementation of such a framework has to overcome several non-trivial challenges. First, the high level of complexity of the underlying standard must be reflected in the software design. An efficient implementation has to consider the limited resources of the underlying hardware. Moreover, the frameworks purpose of realizing a distributed system demands a high degree of reliability of the framework itself and its internal mechanisms. Additionally, a framework must provide an easy-to-use and fail-safe application programming interface (API). In this work, we address these challenges by discussing suitable software engineering principles and practical coding guidelines. A descriptive model is developed that identifies key strategies. General feasibility is shown by outlining environments in which our implementation has been utilized.

Modern operating rooms (OR) undergo a constant rise in the amount and complexity of technical systems. Due to a lack of inter-device communication and integration, each device works stand-alone resulting in redundant sensors, input devices, monitors and-last but not least-crowded ORs and error prone humanmachine-interaction. Therefore, various manufacturers such as Brainlab and Karl Storz provide proprietary integrated workstations. However, those "monolithic" solutions restrict the flexibility of the users and the clinical operators regarding integration of innovative third party devices.In view of this, the OR.NET initiative (www.ornet.org) strives to develop international open standards for secure dynamic networks of medical devices in ORs. In the scope of the OR.NET project, based on service oriented architecture (SOA), the SDC (Service-oriented Device Connectivity) approach is currently in the process of standardization under IEEE 11073 to link medical devices in the OR (short OR.NETwork). It paves the way to interoperability between various medical devices due to its independence of license holders.However, the SDC network does not suit real time (RT) requirements of a deterministic data transmission and low maximum latency, e.g. for robotic applications. This paper shows an approach to extend the secure dynamic OR by a real-time capable network to allow the integration of robotic systems. Exemplarily, this paper outlines an orthopaedic robotic system that is released by a universal configurable footswitch. This significantly extends the scope of applications for integrated ORs with the IEEE 11073 standard.

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Today's landscape of medical devices is dominated by stand-alone systems and proprietary interfaces lacking cross-vendor interoperability. This complicates or even impedes the innovation of novel, intelligent assistance systems relying on the collaboration of medical devices. Emerging approaches use the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm based on Internet protocol (IP) to enable communication between medical devices. While this works well for scenarios with no or only soft timing constraints, the underlying best-effort communication scheme is insufficient for time critical data. Real-time (RT) networks are able to reliably guarantee fixed latency boundaries, for example, by using time division multiple access (TDMA) communication patterns. However, deterministic RT networks come with their own limitations such as tedious, inflexible configuration and a more restricted bandwidth allocation. In this contribution we overcome the drawbacks of both approaches by describing and implementing mechanisms that allow the two networks to interact. We introduce the first implementation of a medical device network that offers hard RT guarantees for control and sensor data and integrates into SOA networks. Based on two application examples we show how the flexibility of SOA networks and the reliability of RT networks can be combined to achieve an open network infrastructure for medical devices in the operating room (OR).