Mobile-Edge Cooperative Multi-User 360° Video Computing and Streaming

Abstract

We investigate a novel communications system that integrates scalable multi-layer 360° video tiling, viewport-adaptive rate-distortion optimal resource allocation, and VR-centric edge computing and caching, to enable future high-quality untethered VR streaming. Our system comprises a collection of 5G small cells that can pool their communication, computing, and storage resources to collectively deliver scalable 360° video content to mobile VR clients at much higher quality. Our major contributions are rigorous design of multi-layer 360° tiling and related models of statistical user navigation, and analysis and optimization of edge-based multi-user VR streaming that integrates viewport adaptation and server cooperation. We also explore the possibility of network coded data operation and its implications for the analysis, optimization, and system performance we pursue here. We demonstrate considerable gains in delivered immersion fidelity, featuring much higher 360° viewport peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and VR video frame rates and spatial resolutions.