On the Minimization of Glass-to-Glass and Glass-to-Algorithm Delay in Video Communication

Abstract

Video cameras are increasingly used to provide real-time feedback in automatic control systems, such as autonomous driving and robotics systems. For such highly dynamic applications, the glass-to-glass (G2G) and glass-to-algorithm (G2A) latencies are critical. In this paper, we analyze the latencies in a point-to-point video transmission system and propose novel frame skipping and preemption approaches to reduce the G2G and G2A delays. We implement the proposed approaches in a prototype that shows significantly reduced G2G and G2A latencies as well as reduced transmission bitrate requirements compared with traditional video transmission schemes. In our low-delay video communication prototype, a VGA resolution video is transmitted with average G2G and G2A delays of 21.2 and 11.5 ms, respectively, with off-the-shelf hardware.