A lossless biosignal compression technology developed by domestic researchers has been officially adopted as a joint international standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) and MPEG. It is significant that domestic technology has taken center stage in the first standard, given the virtual absence of international standards for compressing biosignals such as brainwaves and electrocardiograms.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on the 29th that two core biosignal compression technologies it developed in-house have been incorporated into the International Standard for Bio- and General Waveform Compression (H.BWC), which was simultaneously approved as an ITU-T recommendation (T.261) and MPEG-D Part 8.

ETRI did not stop at proposing technology but took on the role of editor for the standard document to lead the standardization process, and also secured two related international standard patents.

The first technology reflected in this standard is predictive-based encoding.

Biosignals have the characteristic of repeating patterns similar to the previous value.

The research team reduced the amount of information subject to compression itself by predicting the next value based on the previous signal and encoding only the difference between the predicted and actual values.

The second is electrode placement-based channel encoding technology.

When measuring multi-channel EEG, information recorded redundantly between electrodes is identified solely by the electrode connection relationships, preventing unnecessary redundant data storage and efficiently restoring signals.

It is characterized by having almost no additional computational burden.

Both technologies were adopted as standard technologies after undergoing international joint verification.

H.BWC is the first international standard to fill the gap in the field of biosignals, such as electroencephalography (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG), and electromyogram (EMG), where there was no international compression standard, unlike DICOM, the medical imaging standard.

ETRI predicted that the introduction of this technology would improve the efficiency of storing and transmitting large volumes of medical data and be widely utilized in telemedicine, wearable healthcare, and AI-based precision medical diagnosis.

OwlIt is applicable to general waveform data compression, such as industrial sensor data collection and vibration analysis, and has also been adopted in MPEG’s Audio for Machines standard (ACoM).

"It is significant that the technology has been officially recognized as a core component of an international standard, going beyond the level of merely proposing it," said Kang Jung-won, Head of the Media Encoding Research Lab at ETRI. "We will continue to advance compression technology in the fields of biosignals and immersive media and lead international standardization."

Lee Tae-jin, Head of the Media Systems Research Division, also stated, “We will strive to create new value in the medical and various industrial fields based on international standards.”

This research was conducted with support from ETRI's 'Development of Real-Virtual Convergence Spatial Media and Interaction Technology' project.