Providing QoS for Distributed Haptic Virtual Environments in IP Networks

In this paper, we study the transmission of haptic traffic over a best effort IP network and a DiffServ-enabled IP network. The work involves both simulation and practical experimentation. Packet switched networks such as the Internet will shortly need to support many different types of applications which will use multimodal data including reflected force or haptic data. Recent research has established that the Quality of Service (QoS) required to support haptic traffic is significantly different from that used to support conventional real-time traffic such as voice or video. Each type of network impairment has different (and severe) impacts on the user’s haptic experience. While some recent efforts have established the basic range of the network QoS parameters for haptic interaction, to date there has been no specific provision for this traffic over a QoS enabled IP network. This paper presents for the first time, an investigation into providing specific network quality for haptic traffic. The work considers two approaches: simulation and practical experimentation. Our results show the network simulation model compares favourably with the physical network, and can be used to generate a scalable haptic network model where multiple DHVE connections may be examined. Both approaches show that delay and throughput of haptic experience can be improved by using specific QoS class from DiffServ for haptic traffic.