Beyond multimedia adaptation: Quality of experience-aware multi-sensorial media delivery

Multiple sensorial media (mulsemedia) combines multiple media elements which engage three or more of human senses, and as most other media content, requires support for delivery over the existing networks. This paper proposes an adaptive mulsemedia framework (ADAMS) for delivering scalable video and sensorial data to users. Unlike existing two-dimensional joint source-channel adaptation solutions for video streaming, the ADAMS framework includes three joint adaptation dimensions: video source, sensorial source, and network optimization. Using an MPEG-7 description scheme, ADAMS recommends the integration of multiple sensorial effects (i.e., haptic, olfaction, air motion, etc.) as metadata into multimedia streams. ADAMS design includes both coarse- and fine-grained adaptation modules on the server side: mulsemedia flow adaptation and packet priority scheduling. Feedback from subjective quality evaluation and network conditions is used to develop the two modules. Subjective evaluation investigated users' enjoyment levels when exposed to mulsemedia and multimedia sequences, respectively and to study users' preference levels of some sensorial effects in the context of mulsemedia sequences with video components at different quality levels. Results of the subjective study inform guidelines for an adaptive strategy that selects the optimal combination for video segments and sensorial data for a given bandwidth constraint and user requirement. User perceptual tests show how ADAMS outperforms existing multimedia delivery solutions in terms of both user perceived quality and user enjoyment during adaptive streaming of various mulsemedia content. In doing so, it highlights the case for tailored, adaptive mulsemedia delivery over traditional multimedia adaptive transport mechanisms

Efficient Transport Protocol for Networked Haptics Applications

The performance of haptic application is highly sensitive to communication delays and losses of data. It implies several constraints in developing networked haptic applications. This paper describes a new internet protocol called Efficient Transport Protocol (ETP), which aims at developing distributed interactive applications. TCP and UDP are transport protocols commonly used in any kind of networked communication, but they are not focused on real time application. This new protocol is focused on reducing roundtrip time (RTT) and inter packet gap (IPG). ETP is, therefore, optimized for interactive applications which are based on processes that are continuously exchanging data.ETP protocol is based on a state machine that decides the best strategies for optimizing RTT and IPG. Experiments have been carried out in order to compare this new protocol and UDP

Business Case and Technology Analysis for 5G Low Latency Applications

A large number of new consumer and industrial applications are likely to change the classic operator's business models and provide a wide range of new markets to enter. This article analyses the most relevant 5G use cases that require ultra-low latency, from both technical and business perspectives. Low latency services pose challenging requirements to the network, and to fulfill them operators need to invest in costly changes in their network. In this sense, it is not clear whether such investments are going to be amortized with these new business models. In light of this, specific applications and requirements are described and the potential market benefits for operators are analysed. Conclusions show that operators have clear opportunities to add value and position themselves strongly with the increasing number of services to be provided by 5G.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

Analysis domain model for shared virtual environments

The field of shared virtual environments, which also encompasses online games and social 3D environments, has a system landscape consisting of multiple solutions that share great functional overlap. However, there is little system interoperability between the different solutions. A shared virtual environment has an associated problem domain that is highly complex raising difficult challenges to the development process, starting with the architectural design of the underlying system. This paper has two main contributions. The first contribution is a broad domain analysis of shared virtual environments, which enables developers to have a better understanding of the whole rather than the part(s). The second contribution is a reference domain model for discussing and describing solutions - the Analysis Domain Model

Perceived synchronization of mulsemedia services

Multimedia synchronization involves a temporal relationship between audio and visual media components. The presentation of "in-sync" data streams is essential to achieve a natural impression, as "out-of-sync" effects are often associated with user quality of experience (QoE) decrease. Recently, multi-sensory media (mulsemedia) has been demonstrated to provide a highly immersive experience for its users. Unlike traditional multimedia, mulsemedia consists of other media types (i.e., haptic, olfaction, taste, etc.) in addition to audio and visual content. Therefore, the goal of achieving high quality mulsemedia transmission is to present no or little synchronization errors between the multiple media components. In order to achieve this ideal synchronization, there is a need for comprehensive knowledge of the synchronization requirements at the user interface. This paper presents the results of a subjective study carried out to explore the temporal boundaries within which haptic and air-flow media objects can be successfully synchronized with video media. Results show that skews between sensorial media and multimedia might still give the effect that the mulsemedia sequence is "in-sync" and provide certain constraints under which synchronization errors might be tolerated. The outcomes of the paper are used to provide recommendations for mulsemedia service providers in order for their services to be associated with acceptable user experience levels, e.g. haptic media could be presented with a delay of up to 1 s behind video content, while air-flow media could be released either 5 s ahead of or 3 s behind video content

AI enhanced collaborative human-machine interactions for home-based telerehabilitation

The use of robots in a telerehabilitation paradigm could facilitate the delivery of rehabilitation on demand while reducing transportation time and cost. As a result, it helps to motivate patients to exercise frequently in a more comfortable home environment. However, for such a paradigm to work, it is essential that the robustness of the system is not compromised due to network latency, jitter, and delay of the internet. This paper proposes a solution to data loss compensation to maintain the quality of the interaction between the user and the system. Data collected from a well-defined collaborative task using a virtual reality (VR) environment was used to train a robotic system to adapt to the users' behaviour. The proposed approach uses nonlinear autoregressive models with exogenous input (NARX) and long-short term memory (LSTM) neural networks to smooth out the interaction between the user and the predicted movements generated from the system. LSTM neural networks are shown to learn to act like an actual human. The results from this paper have shown that, with an appropriate training method, the artificial predictor can perform very well by allowing the predictor to complete the task within 25 s versus 23 s when executed by the human

Towards Tactile Internet in Beyond 5G Era: Recent Advances, Current Issues and Future Directions

Tactile Internet (TI) is envisioned to create a paradigm shift from the content-oriented communications to steer/control-based communications by enabling real-time transmission of haptic information (i.e., touch, actuation, motion, vibration, surface texture) over Internet in addition to the conventional audiovisual and data traffics. This emerging TI technology, also considered as the next evolution phase of Internet of Things (IoT), is expected to create numerous opportunities for technology markets in a wide variety of applications ranging from teleoperation systems and Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) to automotive safety and eHealthcare towards addressing the complex problems of human society. However, the realization of TI over wireless media in the upcoming Fifth Generation (5G) and beyond networks creates various non-conventional communication challenges and stringent requirements in terms of ultra-low latency, ultra-high reliability, high data-rate connectivity, resource allocation, multiple access and quality-latency-rate tradeoff. To this end, this paper aims to provide a holistic view on wireless TI along with a thorough review of the existing state-of-the-art, to identify and analyze the involved technical issues, to highlight potential solutions and to propose future research directions. First, starting with the vision of TI and recent advances and a review of related survey/overview articles, we present a generalized framework for wireless TI in the Beyond 5G Era including a TI architecture, the main technical requirements, the key application areas and potential enabling technologies. Subsequently, we provide a comprehensive review of the existing TI works by broadly categorizing them into three main paradigms; namely, haptic communications, wireless AR/VR, and autonomous, intelligent and cooperative mobility systems. Next, potential enabling technologies across physical/Medium Access Control (MAC) and network layers are identified and discussed in detail. Also, security and privacy issues of TI applications are discussed along with some promising enablers. Finally, we present some open research challenges and recommend promising future research directions

Development and evaluation of a haptic framework supporting telerehabilitation robotics and group interaction

Telerehabilitation robotics has grown remarkably in the past few years. It can provide intensive training to people with special needs remotely while facilitating therapists to observe the whole process. Telerehabilitation robotics is a promising solution supporting routine care which can help to transform face-to-face and one-on-one treatment sessions that require not only intensive human resource but are also restricted to some specialised care centres to treatments that are technology-based (less human involvement) and easy to access remotely from anywhere. However, there are some limitations such as network latency, jitter, and delay of the internet that can affect negatively user experience and quality of the treatment session. Moreover, the lack of social interaction since all treatments are performed over the internet can reduce motivation of the patients. As a result, these limitations are making it very difficult to deliver an efficient recovery plan. This thesis developed and evaluated a new framework designed to facilitate telerehabilitation robotics. The framework integrates multiple cutting-edge technologies to generate playful activities that involve group interaction with binaural audio, visual, and haptic feedback with robot interaction in a variety of environments. The research questions asked were: 1) Can activity mediated by technology motivate and influence the behaviour of users, so that they engage in the activity and sustain a good level of motivation? 2) Will working as a group enhance users’ motivation and interaction? 3) Can we transfer real life activity involving group interaction to virtual domain and deliver it reliably via the internet? There were three goals in this work: first was to compare people’s behaviours and motivations while doing the task in a group and on their own; second was to determine whether group interaction in virtual and reala environments was different from each other in terms of performance, engagement and strategy to complete the task; finally was to test out the effectiveness of the framework based on the benchmarks generated from socially assistive robotics literature. Three studies have been conducted to achieve the first goal, two with healthy participants and one with seven autistic children. The first study observed how people react in a challenging group task while the other two studies compared group and individual interactions. The results obtained from these studies showed that the group interactions were more enjoyable than individual interactions and most likely had more positive effects in terms of user behaviours. This suggests that the group interaction approach has the potential to motivate individuals to make more movements and be more active and could be applied in the future for more serious therapy. Another study has been conducted to measure group interaction’s performance in virtual and real environments and pointed out which aspect influences users’ strategy for dealing with the task. The results from this study helped to form a better understanding to predict a user’s behaviour in a collaborative task. A simulation has been run to compare the results generated from the predictor and the real data. It has shown that, with an appropriate training method, the predictor can perform very well. This thesis has demonstrated the feasibility of group interaction via the internet using robotic technology which could be beneficial for people who require social interaction (e.g. stroke patients and autistic children) in their treatments without regular visits to the clinical centres