VR-Based Immersive Service Management in B5G Mobile Systems: A UAV Command and Control Use Case

management of remote services, such as remote surgery, remote sensing, or remote driving, has become increas-ingly important, especially with the emerging 5G and Beyond 5G technologies. However, the strict network requirements of these remote services represent one of the major challenges that hinder their fast and large-scale deployment in critical infras-tructures. This article addresses certain issues inherent in remote and immersive control of virtual reality (VR)-based unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), whereby a user remotely controls UAVs, equipped with 360 degrees cameras, using their head-mounted devices (HMD) and their respective controllers. Remote and immersive control services, using 360 degrees video streams, require much lower latency and higher throughput for true immersion and high ser-vice reliability. To assess and analyze these requirements, this article introduces a real-life testbed system that leverages dif-ferent technologies (e.g., VR, 360 degrees video streaming over 4G/5G, and edge computing). In the performance evaluation, different latency types are considered. They are namely: 1) glass-to-glass latency between the 360 degrees camera of a remote UAV and the HMD display; 2) user/pilot's reaction latency; and 3) the com-mand/execution latency. The obtained results indicate that the responsiveness (dubbed Glass-to-Reaction-to-Execution-GRE- latency) of a pilot, using our system, to a sudden event is within an acceptable range, i.e., around 900 ms.

Automated summary

The management of remote services, such as remote surgery, remote sensing, or remote driving, is becoming increasingly important with the advancement of 5G and Beyond 5G technologies. However, the strict network requirements for these services pose challenges in their deployment. This article addresses issues in the remote and immersive control of VR-based UAVs and presents a real-life testbed system using VR, 360 degrees video streaming, and edge computing to evaluate these requirements.