We are
living in an era of Mobile data communication. This Mobile Internet connects people anywhere and allows for
voice services and the exchange of data and multimedia content at any time. A
number of innovations in the ICT sector have enabled exponential growth in
network capacity, leading to the emergence of smartphones and a user-experience
rich in multimedia.
The Internet of Things exploited
the potential of networking by connecting devices and objects. The next
wave of innovation will create the Tactile Internet.
Extremely
low response time in combination with high reliability, availability and
security will define the character of this upcoming idea. This can have
a significant impact on business and society by introducing numerous new
opportunities for emerging technology markets and the delivering the essential
public services.
The ‘Logic’ behind it -1. Vision
Tactile Internet – An Important Future Innovation Area
The
perceptual processes of humans limit the speed of their interaction with the environment.
We experience interaction with a technical system as intuitive and natural only
if the feedback of the system is adapted to our human reaction time. As a
result of which the requirements for technical systems enabling real-time
interactions depend on the participating human senses. Human reaction times
depend on the sensory stimulus and whether the human is prepared or unprepared
for the situation. When a person reacts to a sudden incident, the time-lag between a human sensing a stimulus and responding with a
muscular reaction is in the range of 1
sec.
On the other hand
when a person is prepared for a situation, a faster reaction time is needed. The human auditory
reaction time is about 100 ms. A typical human visual reaction time is in the
range of 10 milliseconds. But for high speed requirements such as manually controlling a visual scene
and issuing commands that anticipate rapid response, a reaction time of 1ms is required. Examples include moving
a mouse pointer over a screen and viewing its smooth path over the screen, or
moving our heads while wearing Virtual Reality goggles and expecting an
immediate response from the visual display. To an extent we can say that all of
our human senses can interact with machines, and technology’s potential in this
respect is improving. Among the senses, the visual-tactile interaction between
humans and technical systems is becoming more important, especially in light of
the proliferation of smartphones. . Therefore for technical applications to
match humans’ interaction, our natural reaction times and technical
specifications must be in sync.
System Architecture
The basic
underlying assumption is based on its requirement of the best possible
response times, availability, reliability and security. These objectives can
only be accomplished by a distributed service platform architecture. The need
for ultra-low end-to-end latency requires that tactile applications be kept
local, close to the users. In the initial step, a small local data center might
support a cluster of user devices in its vicinity. This data center (or mini
cloud) then provides the complete functionality of a wireless network as well
as all tactile services required within the cluster. The next step would be to
deploy a Mobile Edge-Cloud which will handle the tactile applications’ network functions
at the edge of the mobile access network, closer to the user devices.
How does it affect me?
The instantaneous
reaction of the Tactile Internet will enhance the way we communicate and
lead to more realistic, immersive social interaction in private and business
environments. It will affect the society in many ways.
ü Education
Redefined: Advanced methods for teaching such as e-Learning and online
courses, as well as simulations of movements will be augmented by interactive
elements far more advanced than today’s embedded tests. The instantaneous
reaction times of the will make it possible to enable haptic overlay of the
teacher and learner which will result in novel learning experiences.
ü Healthcare
sector: Better
quality care will be possible by exploiting the amalgamated expertise of
medical doctors connected via the Tactile
Internet during remote diagnosis and treatment, as well as
through the combination of experienced surgeons’ expertise with the high
spatial precision of robot-assisted operations. Additionally, the support and
assistance provided to people with disabilities by exoskeleton based artificial
limbs and power amplifiers will improve their mobility, ensuring them the
ability to lead a self-determined life.
ü Personal
Safety Zones: The capabilities of the Tactile
Internet will permit the creation of a personal spatial safety
zone, or ‘bubble’, able to interact with nearby objects also connected to the Tactile
Internet. Applied to road traffic, in the long term this safety zone will
be able to protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians. Vehicles will detect
safety-critical situations and react instantly to avoid traffic accidents and warn
other objects of impending danger.
ü Smart
City traffic: The connectivity of vehicles in the Tactile Internet will enable co-operative traffic modes,
where traffic flow will be optimized by heeding local safety constraints as
well as parameters such as the overall traffic density in a Smart City.
ü Energy: With respect to energy
generation also, the Tactile Internet enables dynamic activation and
deactivation of local power generation and consumption, potentially even taking
into account the AC phase information to minimize the generation of unusable
reactive power.
Areas of application -plication Fields
Industry
Automation
in industry is one of the most significant field for the Tactile Internet.
The sensitivity of control circuits when controlling rapidly moving devices
(eg- industrial robots) requires an end-to-end latency significantly below 1
millisecond per sensor. In industrial controlled closed loop system scenarios,
at intervals of roughly a millisecond, a master station contacts all sensors
and actuator and present the acquired data to the control application. If there
are large number of sensors then every individual sensor must be accessed
within an end-to-end latency period.
Augmented Reality
The Tactile
Internet will reach new frontiers in assistance systems too. Gradual
transition from being restricted to mainly pre-processed content to the
augmentation of dynamic content or up-to-date information is now possible. This
in reference to the road traffic accidents will enable the real-time virtual
extension of a driver’s field of view. Possible dangerous events caused by
drivers’ not seeing people or obstacles in fog or rain, or as a result of
curved roads, can now be captured by other vehicles that are able to transmit
their view to following vehicles in the form of a projection onto the
windshield. The concept of ‘seeing what others see’ can also be exploited to
great effect in medicine, rescue operations or the virtual attendance of live
concerts.
Serious Gaming
Serious
Games are games designed for a primary purpose other than entertainment. They
combine fun with problem-solving challenges and goal-oriented motivation for
improvement. Serious Games are relevant to several application fields important
to our society; among them education, training, simulation and health.
Interactive learning
We all
require the ability to elicit precise, coordinated small-muscle movements in body
parts such as our hands and fingers. This idea will enable substantially
improved learning experiences based on the haptic overlay of the teacher and
learner. When the student executes a task, the teacher will feel the trajectory
and degree of applied forces, correcting them as required. Such kind of precise
operation requires identical multi-modal human-machine interfaces capable of
visual, auditory and haptic interaction.
Security
The
technical requirements of the Tactile Internet, especially ultra-low
end-to-end latency, pose enormous challenges for communications systems.
Paradigm changes are necessary, to ensure both data security and the
availability and dependability of systems. Nowadays, a secure communication is
based on separating the encryption from the transmission technology.
Hence, the Tactile Internet will enable an
unforeseeable plurality of new applications, products and services. It will
enable humans and machines to interact with their environment in real time,
while mobile and within a certain spatial communication range. As a key driver
of innovation, the Tactile Internet represents
a revolutionary level of development for economics, society and culture.
Parag Shukla
Marketing and Finance - Batch of 2016
Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management, Pune
P
