Vision and enabling technologies of tactile internet realization

Abstract

Tactile Internet is an emerging paradigm of the next generation mobile networks (5G and beyond). Conceptually designed to respond to the most complex requirements of ultra-low latency and extremely high reliability, it was observed as capability to wirelessly control both real and virtual objects, thus requiring tactile-based control signals and audio-visual feedbacks. This vision can improve the user experience in virtual environments in the order of millisecond interaction. Future applications such as autonomous vehicles, haptic healthcare, remote robotics, and robust image processing would use the Tactile Internet and related technologies. Software-defined networking and network function virtualization, together with edge-fog computing, can be seen as new wave toward the efficient and flexible infrastructure. This work provides a comprehensive survey on recent progress and enabling technologies proposed for the Tactile Internet. By outlining the key networking solutions, together with innovative radio interface design, some open issues and future research directions to meet critical latency requirements, are highlighted, too.