Softwarized Infrastructures for Tactile Internet Applications

互联网已经从固定的、基于文本的互联网发展到多媒体的移动互联网，最后发展到物联网。触觉互联网是下一个可预见的阶段。除了今天的视觉和听觉通信之外，它还将使网络上的触觉通信成为可能。这无疑将彻底改变目前Internet提供的一系列服务和应用程序。远程操作、沉浸式娱乐系统、机器人和制造业等领域有望出现许多新的应用和服务。这些应用程序和服务具有非常严格的延迟可靠性要求。例如，对于远程机器人手术等应用程序，延迟要求可能严格到往返1毫秒。软件基础设施通过面向软件的操作来支持应用程序。关键的推动因素是云计算、边缘/雾计算、网络功能虚拟化（NFV）和软件定义网络（SDN）。这些基础设施提供了高度的灵活性，实际上是下一代网络的支柱。然而，它们仍然不能提供触觉互联网所需的超低延迟和超高可靠性。过去已经提出了几种软件基础设施来处理这些特殊的需求。一些处理架构方面，而另一些则关注算法方面。然而，它们都有明显的缺陷。本提案的长期目标是为触觉互联网应用指定和验证原始和创新的软件基础设施。第一个短期目标是体系结构模块和协议的设计和验证，第二个目标是将在体系结构模块中运行的算法的规范和设计。该方法将依赖于每年一次的迭代方法，每次迭代都建立在前一次迭代的基础上，并考虑到技术的重大发展。这项研究计划将产生重大影响。一方面，它将通过满足超低延迟和超高可靠性，将软件基础设施提升到一个新的水平。除了触觉互联网应用将受益于这些基础设施外，其他尚未预见到的应用也将受益于它。这项研究将使加拿大在远程医疗、工业物联网和6G等行业中处于世界领先地位，触觉互联网有望在这些行业中发挥重要作用。在5年的时间里，将培养1名博士后、4名博士生和6名硕士研究生，并将获得软件基础设施、触觉互联网应用和机器学习（ML）等相关技术的关键技能。因此，他们将能够为这些行业的发展做出贡献。

The Internet has evolved from a fixed and text based-Internet to a multimedia mobile Internet and finally to the Internet of Things (IoT). The Tactile Internet is the next foreseen stage. It will enable haptic communications over networks in addition to the visual and auditory communications of today. This will certainly revolutionize the set of services and applications provided today by the Internet. Many new applications and services are expected from sectors such as tele-operations, immersive entertainment systems, robotics and manufacturing. These applications and services have very stringent latency reliability requirements. The latency requirement for instance, may be as stringent as 1 ms round trip for applications such as remote robotic surgery. Softwarized infrastructures support applications through software-oriented operations. The key enablers are cloud computing, edge/fog computing, network function virtualization (NFV) and software defined networks (SDN). These infrastructures offer a great level of flexibility and are actually the pillars of next generation networks. However, they still do not offer the levels of ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliability required by Tactile Internet. Several softwarized infrastructures have been proposed in the past to deal with these peculiar requirements. Some deal with the architectural aspects, while others focus on the algorithmic aspects. However, they all suffer from significant deficiencies. The long-term objective of this proposal is to specify and validate original and innovative softwarized infrastructures for Tactile Internet applications. The first short term objective is the design and validation of architectural modules and protocols and the second the specification and design of the algorithms that will run in the architectural modules. The methodology will rely on a yearly iteration approach with each iteration building on the previous ones and taking into account the significant evolution in technologies . This research program will have major impacts. On the one hand it will take softwarized infrastructures to the next level by catering to ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliability. In addition to Tactile Internet applications which will benefit from such infrastructures, other applications that are not yet foreseen will also benefit from it. This research will position Canada as a world leader in industries such as tele-health, industrial IoT, and 6G in which Tactile Internet is expected to play a major role. Over the 5 years, a postdoctoral fellow, 4 PhD students and 6 Master students will be trained and will acquire critical skills in softwarized infrastructures, Tactile Internet applications,  and related technologies such as Machine Learning (ML). They will therefore be able to contribute to the growth of these industries.