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

Scalable Tactile Sensing E-Skins Through Spatial Frequency Encoding

Most state-of-the-art tactile sensing arrays are not scalable to large numbers of sensing units due to their raster-scanned readout. This readout scheme results in a high degree of wiring complexity and a tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolution. In this thesis I present the use of spatial frequency encoding to develop asynchronous tactile sensor arrays with single-wire sensor transduction, no per-taxel electronics, and no scanning latency. I demonstrate this through two prototype devices, Neuroskin 1, which is developed using fabric-based e-textile materials, and Neuroskin 2, which is developed using fPCB. Like human skin, Neuroskin has a temporal resolution of 1 kHz and innate data compression where tactile data from an MxN Neuroskin is compressed into M+N values. Neuroskin 2 requires only four interface wires (regardless of its number of sensors) and can be easily scaled up through its development as an fPCB. To demonstrate the utility of the prototypes, Neuroskin was mounted onto a biomimetic robotic finger to palpate different textures and perform a texture discrimination task. Neuroskin 1 and 2 achieved 87% and 76% classification accuracy respectively in the texture discrimination task. Overall, the method of spatial-frequency encoding is theoretically scalable to support sensor arrays with thousands of sensing elements without latency, and the resolution of a Neuroskin array is only limited by the ADC sampling rate. Future tactile sensing systems can utilize the spatial frequency encoding architecture presented here to be dense, numerous, and flexible while retaining excellent temporal resolution

6G Enabled Smart Infrastructure for Sustainable Society: Opportunities, Challenges, and Research Roadmap

The 5G wireless communication network is currently faced with the challenge of limited data speed exacerbated by the proliferation of billions of data-intensive applications. To address this problem, researchers are developing cutting-edge technologies for the envisioned 6G wireless communication standards to satisfy the escalating wireless services demands. Though some of the candidate technologies in the 5G standards will apply to 6G wireless networks, key disruptive technologies that will guarantee the desired quality of physical experience to achieve ubiquitous wireless connectivity are expected in 6G. This article first provides a foundational background on the evolution of different wireless communication standards to have a proper insight into the vision and requirements of 6G. Second, we provide a panoramic view of the enabling technologies proposed to facilitate 6G and introduce emerging 6G applications such as multi-sensory–extended reality, digital replica, and more. Next, the technology-driven challenges, social, psychological, health and commercialization issues posed to actualizing 6G, and the probable solutions to tackle these challenges are discussed extensively. Additionally, we present new use cases of the 6G technology in agriculture, education, media and entertainment, logistics and transportation, and tourism. Furthermore, we discuss the multi-faceted communication capabilities of 6G that will contribute significantly to global sustainability and how 6G will bring about a dramatic change in the business arena. Finally, we highlight the research trends, open research issues, and key take-away lessons for future research exploration in 6G wireless communicatio