A Case Study on the Deployment of a Tactile Internet Application in a Hybrid Cloud, Edge, and Mobile Ad Hoc Cloud Environment

Abstract

The tactile Internet is the next step after the Internet of Things (IoT). It enables the steering and control of virtual and real objects through the Internet and requires a very low round trip latency. This article is devoted to a case study on the deployment of a tactile Internet application in a hybrid cloud, edge, and mobile <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ad hoc</i> cloud environment. We deploy a remote phobia-treatment application as a set of components. Remote phobia treatment allows phobia patients to have therapy sessions under the guidance of an expert therapist located remotely, with patients and therapist sharing the same virtual reality (VR) environment. A three-layer architecture (cloud, edge, and mobile <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ad hoc</i> cloud) is proposed for the deployment. A prototype is built with Microsoft Azure at the cloud layer, laptops at the edge layer, and smartphones at the mobile <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ad hoc</i> cloud layer. End-users are equipped with an HTC VIVE headset for VR rendering and Gloveone gloves for haptic sensations rendering. Extensive performance measurements are made by varying the component deployment patterns as well as the distance between the therapist and patient. Our results demonstrate clearly that the addition of mobile <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ad hoc</i> cloud to the edge and cloud does bring added value in terms of latency reduction when deploying tactile Internet applications.