Priority-based haptic event filtering for transmission and error control in networked virtual environments

Abstract

A data filtering scheme is proposed for transmission and error control of haptic events in haptic-based network virtual environments; this scheme is called as priority-based haptic event filtering. Because a high update rate of approximately 1 kHz is required for haptic rendering, sophisticated transmission rate control and reduction schemes are necessary for the haptic events. Although existing schemes can reduce the transmission rate without any perception impairment, they are very sensitive to packet losses. In this paper, we prioritize the haptic events according to the delay and loss effects. Utilizing the proposed haptic event prioritization, the proposed filtering scheme adapts the transmission rate and updates the predicted loss rate according to the current network state. Our simulation and experiment results confirm that the proposed scheme can effectively select important haptic events and guarantee an improved haptic interaction quality over a bandwidth-limited lossy network than existing transmission schemes tailored for networked haptics.