Network Architectures for Distributed Haptic Virtual Environments (HAPNet)

在这个项目中，我们建议调查技术，将允许额外的人类感觉，触觉触摸（或反射力），通过互联网发送。今天的电信和计算机网络已经被设计为承载仅与两种人类感官有关的信息：听觉（例如声音和语音）和视觉（例如视频，图形和文本等）。互联网现在正在重新设计，以便它可以为不同类型的业务提供不同级别的服务，例如支持通过其IP协议（VOIP）传输语音。这导致了可以支持不同服务质量（QoS）级别的网络架构的设计。很明显，在网络中引入携带与其他感官相关的信息的能力，将为新的和显著改进的应用开辟巨大的潜力。将触摸或力嵌入到应用程序中，然后通过互联网将其分发的能力将在协作设计，沉浸式现实和电话会议，远程学习和培训，虚拟现实展厅和博物馆等领域产生重大影响。现在还认识到，将触觉组件引入交互式游戏提高了用户的体验质量，这反过来又增加了对这些类型的应用程序的市场需求。同样清楚的是，支持诸如触摸（触觉）等其他感觉所需的网络服务（即QoS）将与当前存在的网络服务显著不同。几乎所有触觉应用都被设计成触觉设备连接到单个独立系统，或者专用连接用于提供远程交互。因此，架构互联网提供一个可接受的分布式触觉应用程序的服务是一个重大的挑战，这项研究的目的是解决。一个相关的挑战是设计架构，可以扩展到支持多个触觉设备（或用户）的交互所需的QoS。最近的研究表明，每种类型的网络损伤影响的感觉力反馈以特定的方式。网络延迟可能会使用户在视觉上接触到虚拟对象之前就感觉到它，或者移动到固体对象。延迟也会使虚拟环境的不同副本去同步化。抖动使用户感觉对象的质量是可变的。数据包丢失可以减少用户感觉到的力的量。这些损伤的影响是将不需要的伪影引入虚拟环境中。然而，它们也影响与物理世界的交互，更严重的后果是对触觉设备造成损坏，并且在某些情况下还可能对最终用户造成物理损坏。迄今为止，网络还没有认真考虑在触觉补偿算法的设计。然而，引入分级QoS架构（如Diffserv）到下一代互联网现在提供的能力，如包延迟，抖动和丢失的约束效应。这些保证可用于为不同应用提供特定级别的公差（空间和触觉）。因此，该研究的一个主要贡献将是开发补偿技术，考虑网络可以提供的当前服务水平，并将其映射到不同类型的触觉应用程序。将与代表该技术领域关键组成部分的合作者进行一系列试验，调查衍生架构和补偿算法的性能：BT（网络运营商，英国）、LABEIN（触觉应用，西班牙）、HandshakeVR（触觉软件，加拿大）和Immersion（触觉设备制造商，加州）。研究结果将为未来设备、DHVE的设计者以及必须支持它们的网络设计者提供有价值的知识。

In this project we propose to investigate techniques that will allow an additional human sense, haptic touch (or reflected force), to be sent over the Internet. Today's telecommunications and computer networks have been designed to carry information that pertains to only two human senses: the auditory sense (for example sound and speech), and the visual sense (for example video, graphic, and text etc). The Internet is now being reengineered so that it can provide different levels of service for different types of traffic, e.g. to support the transport of voice over its IP protocol (VOIP). This has lead to the design of network architectures that can support different Quality of Service (QoS) levels. It is clear that introducing into networks the ability to carry information relating to other senses will open up an enormous potential for both new and dramatically improved applications. The ability to embed touch or force into applications and then distribute them across the Internet will have significant implications in areas such as collaborative design, immersive reality and teleconferencing, distance learning and training, virtual reality showrooms and museums. It is now also recognised that the introduction of a haptic component to interactive games has increased users' quality of experience, and this has in turn increased the market demand for these types of applications. It is also clear that the network service (i.e. QoS) needed to support other senses such as touch (haptics) will be significantly different from that which currently exists.Almost all haptic applications are designed whereby the haptic device is connected to a single stand-alone system, or where dedicated connections are used to provide remote interaction. Architecting the Internet to provide an acceptable service for distributed haptic applications therefore represents a significant challenge that this research aims to address. A related challenge is to design architectures that can scale to support the QoS required for the interaction of multiple haptic devices (or users).Recent research has shown that each type of network impairment affects the sense of force feedback in a particular way. Network delay can make the user feel a virtual object before it is visually in contact, or to move into solid objects. Delay also desynchronizes the different copies of the virtual environment. Jitter makes the user feel that the object's mass is variable. Packet loss can reduce the amount the force felt by the user. The effect of these impairments is to introduce unwanted artefacts into the virtual environment. However they also effect the interaction with the physical world and a more serious consequence is to cause damage to the haptic device, and in some situations may also cause physical damage to the end user. To date, the network has not been seriously considered in the design of haptic compensation algorithms. However the introduction of graded QoS architectures (e.g. Diffserv) into the next generation Internet now offers the capability to bound effects such as packet delay jitter and loss. These guarantees can be used to offer specific levels of tolerance (spatial and haptic) to different applications. Therefore a major contribution of the research will be to develop compensation techniques that consider the current level of service that the network can offer and map these against different types of haptic applications.A series of trials investigating the performance of the derived architectures and compensation algorithms will be conducted with the collaborators who represent key constituents in this technology area: BT (network operator, UK), LABEIN (haptic applications, Spain), HandshakeVR (haptics software, Canada), and Immersion (haptic device manufacturer, California). The results will provide valuable knowledge to the designers of future devices, DHVEs and to the designers of the networks that have to support them.