Virtualized sub-GHz transmission paired with mobile access for the Tactile Internet

Abstract

Abstract-The Tactile Internet has highly challenging technical requirements. For example, the end-to-end latency for the sensation of touch to be realistically conveyed to the end-user via communications, for the purpose of that end-user implementing control actions in response to that touch, must be less than 1 ms. This is equivalent to only 300 km propagation at the speed of light. Such constraints mean that many of the conventional approaches to communications, e.g., higher-layer retransmissions for reliability and congestion control, and even link-level retransmissions for reliability, can not apply. In this paper, we propose a novel solution for combining licensed access for reliability and control, with virtualized low-frequency sub-GHz access for good coverage and low latency, also removing receive-acknowledgement based reliability and congestion control mechanisms. Through the removal of these reliability/retransmission mechanisms, and by achieving a more direct path to the receivers through virtualization and better coverage maximizing (wireless) routing options, or even transmitting directly, this proposed solution minimizes latency and jitter while still being able to achieve the extremely challenging requirement for reliability of the Tactile Internet. We argue the benefits of our solution with reference to a major trial within the Ofcom TV White Spaces Pilot in the UK, as one readily-available means for such sub-GHz transmission. We also provide the example of such a realization as a viable means of achieving remote surgical operations across the London, UK area, with the surgeon(s) being physically located in only one or a small number of London hospitals.

A Comprehensive Survey of the Tactile Internet: State-of-the-Art and Research Directions

“…1) Real-time Teleoperation: Real-time teleoperation (e.g., remote robotic surgery) is a prime application that will be realized by the Tactile Internet. This application has been considered in Maier et al [50] and Holland et al [100].…”

“…In another real-time teleoperation work, Holland et al [100] utilize sub-GHz technology to transmit tactile feedback and robotic control in a direct path without any retransmission mechanism, thereby minimizing the communication delay. This is possible because the sub-GHz transmission has very good wireless coverage.…”

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

“…Moreover, due to challenging requirements (mainly due to the strict requirement of 1 ms round-trip latency), many existing congestion control mechanisms, higher layer and link layer based retransmission techniques for enhancing the communication reliability may not be applicable in TI applications. In order to achieve low latency required for TI applications, it is crucial to reduce the time-consuming signalling caused by different factors such as data transfer errors or loss detection and correction, and congestion control [7], [114]. Moreover, towards enabling the real-time human-machine interaction in TI applications, the following two issues are critical in addition to enhancing the speed of haptic data transmission [13]: (i) the reaction time of the haptic system should fit within the time window defined by the reaction time of the involved human sense, and (ii) the time-lag of the feedback for different senses needs to be imperceptible for the scenarios where multiple senses (audio, visual, haptic) are being involved in an interaction.…”

“…One of the TI scenario examples which need such stringent requirements is the remote medical operations in which a surgeon needs to feel the sensation of touch and implement control actions by using force-feedback via the haptic clothing and other equipments. To this end, authors in [7] proposed the combined use of virtualized sub-GHz radios and licensed mobile radio to realize the TI in medical imagery applications. Also, the proposed concept was verified by employing Ofcom TV whitespace as the sub-GHz medium.…”

“…It has a wide range of application scenarios in the industrial, eHealth-Care, education and entertainment sectors, and it aims to revolutionize various aspects of our everyday life [5]. As an example in the eHealthCare sector, a remote surgery operation can be considered, which requires the surgeon to perform the operation of a patient at the distance by feeling the sensation of the touch and providing force-feedback via haptic clothing/equipment and by implementing the required control actions and adjustments [7]. Another important example for the TI is a road safety scenario [4], in which providing ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliable communications is a crucial requirement for the safety of passengers.…”