Mohammed Ghanbari

Feng Wu

Cha Zhang

Ghassan Alregib

Athanasios Vasilakos

Multimedia Immersive Technologies and Networking

Remote access of scientific instruments over the Internet (i.e., remote instrumentation) demand high-resolution (2D and 3D) video image transfers with simultaneous real-time mouse and keyboard controls. Consequently, user quality of experience (QoE) is highly sensitive to network bottlenecks. Further, improper user control while reacting to impaired video caused due to network bottlenecks could result in physical damages to the expensive instrument equipment. Hence, it is vital to understand the interplay between (a) user keyboard/mouse actions toward the instrument, and (b) corresponding network reactions for transfer of instrument video images toward the user. In this paper, we first present an analytical model for characterizing user and network interplay during remote instrumentation sessions in terms of demand and supply interplay principles of traditional economics. Next, we describe the trends of the model parameters using subjective and objective measurements obtained from QoE experiments. Thereafter, we describe our Remote Instrumentation Collaboration Environment (RICE) software that leverages our experiences from the user and network interplay studies, and has functionalities that facilitate reliable and efficient remote instrumentation such as (a) network health awareness to detect network bottleneck periods, and (b) collaboration tools for multiple participants to interact during research and training sessions.

Prasad Calyam

Abdul Kalash

Ramya Gopalan

Sowmya Gopalan

Ashok Krishnamurthy

RICE: A Reliable and Efficient Remote Instrumentation Collaboration Environment

The Virtual Immersive Learning (VIL) test bench implements a virtual collaborative immersive environment, capable of integrating natural contexts and typical gestures, which may occur during traditional lectures, enhanced with advanced experimental sessions. The system architecture is described, along with the motivations, and the most significant choices, both hardware and software, adopted for its implementation. The novelty of the approach essentially relies on its capability of embedding functionalities that stem from various research results (mainly carried out within the VICOM national project), and &#x201c;putting the pieces together&#x201d; in a well-integrated framework. These features, along with its high portability, good flexibility, and, above all, low cost, make this approach appropriate for educational and training purposes, mainly concerning measurements on telecommunication systems, at universities and research centers, as well as enterprises. Moreover, the methodology can be employed for remote access to and sharing of costly measurement equipment in many different activities. The immersive characteristics of the framework are illustrated, along with performance measurements related to a specific application.

Luca Berruti

Franco Davoli

Sandro Zappatore

Gianluca Massei

Amedeo Scarpiello

Remote Laboratory Experiments in a Virtual Immersive Learning Environment

Augmented reality (AR) on a head-mounted display is conveniently supported by a wearable wireless network. If, in addition, the AR display is moderated to take account of the cognitive load of the wearer, then additional biosensors form part of the network. In this paper, the impact of these additional traffic sources is assessed. Rateless coding is proposed to not only protect the fragile encoded video stream from wireless noise and interference but also to reduce coding overhead.  The paper proposes a block-based form of rateless channel coding in which the unit of coding is a block within a packet.  The contribution of this paper is that it minimizes energy consumption by reducing the overhead from forward error correction (FEC), while error correction properties are conserved. Compared to simple packet-based rateless coding, with this form of block-based coding, data loss is reduced and energy efficiency is improved. Cross-layer organization of piggy-backed response blocks must take place in response to feedback, as detailed in the paper. Compared also to variants of its default FEC scheme, results from a Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15.1) wireless network show a consistent improvement in  energy consumption, packet arrival latency, and video quality at the AR display.

R. Razavi

M. Fleury

M. Ghanbari

Enabling Cognitive Load-Aware AR with Rateless Coding on a Wearable Network

Haptic information originates from a different human sense (touch), therefore the quality of service (QoS) required to support haptic traffic is significantly different from that used to support conventional real-time traffic such as voice or video. Each type of network impairment has different (and severe) impacts on the user's haptic experience. There has been no specific provision of QoS parameters for haptic interaction. Previous research into distributed haptic virtual environments (DHVEs) have concentrated on synchronization of positions (haptic device or virtual objects), and are based on client-server architectures. We present a new peer-to-peer DHVE architecture that further extends this to enable force interactions between two users whereby force data are sent to the remote peer in addition to positional information. The work presented involves both simulation and practical experimentation where multimodal data is transmitted over a QoS-enabled IP network. Both forms of experiment produce consistent results which show that the use of specific QoS classes for haptic traffic will reduce network delay and jitter, leading to improvements in users' haptic experiences with these types of applications.

Alan Marshall

Kian Meng Yap

Wai Yu

Providing QoS for Networked Peers in Distributed Haptic Virtual Environments

The increasing interest in systems able to provide users with immersive services (e.g., domotics, context-aware applications, and immersive distance learning tools) has encouraged the development of cheap and effective platforms aimed at tracking objects and people within a certain space. In this context, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can play a very important role, since specialized sensors can be fruitfully
exploited in order to generate/receive signals by means of which the WSN can derive the position of nodes joined to the objects to be tracked. The paper presents an original localization platform that exploits a single-hop WSN, based on a Microchip MCU and a Cypress RF device, to track its moving nodes. Specifically, the nodes of the network are divided into three sets: the first set consists of anchor nodes that, according to the commands from the sink (the central node of the WSN), generate ultrasonic pulses. These pulses are received by the second set of (moving) nodes, which estimate the pulse time trip and communicate it to the sink. Finally, the last set is constituted by general purpose nodes that collect any kind of data from the surrounding field. The sink gathers all the data, computes the position of moving nodes, and transfers information to external users on the Internet. The algorithms adopted to manage the network and to localize moving nodes are discussed. A working prototype based upon the hardware platform, software, and protocol described in this paper has been deployed and tested, and some results are shown. Simulation results of the localization system are presented to show system scalability.

Livio Denegri

Sensor Network-Based Localization for Continuous Tracking Applications: Implementation and Performance Evaluation

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Advances in Multimedia

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Papers are published upon acceptance, regardless of the Special Issue publication date.

Advances in Multimedia

Multimedia Immersive Technologies and Networking

Multimedia Immersive Technologies and Networking

Articles

Multimedia Immersive Technologies and Networking

RICE: A Reliable and Efficient Remote Instrumentation Collaboration Environment

Remote Laboratory Experiments in a Virtual Immersive Learning Environment

Enabling Cognitive Load-Aware AR with Rateless Coding on a Wearable Network

Providing QoS for Networked Peers in Distributed Haptic Virtual Environments

Sensor Network-Based Localization for Continuous Tracking Applications: Implementation and Performance Evaluation