Virtual, Augmented, Mixed Reality, and Extended Reality
Radhika Ranjan Roy · Auerbach Publications eBooks · 2024
“Extended reality” (XR), the umbrella term that includes augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality (VR). It is an immersive, completely artificial computer-simulated image and environment with real-time interaction. XR has a tremendous market size and will profoundly transform our lives by changing the way we interact with the physical world [ 1 , 2 ]. However, existing XR devices are mainly tethered by cables which limit users’ mobility and quality-of-experience (QoE). Wireless XR leverages existing and future wireless technologies, such as 5G, 6G, and Wi-Fi, to remove cables that are tethered to the head-mounted devices (HMDs). Such changes can free users and enable a plethora of applications. High-quality ultimate XR requires an uncompressed data rate up to 2.3 Tbps with a latency lower than 1 ms. AR applications must continually gather information about the user’s surrounding environment via multiple sensors. Complicated algorithms must be used to make sense of sensor data of the environment. Artificial intelligence (AI) can simplify that process and make it more accurate than a model made exclusively by a human. Consequently, AR and AI will become more closely entwined. Although 5G has significantly improved data rates and reduced latency, it still cannot meet such high requirements. However, we are providing a roadmap toward wireless ultimate XR. The basics, existing products, and use cases of AR, MR, and VR are considered, upon which technical requirements and bottleneck of realizing ultimate XR using wireless technologies are identified. Challenges of utilizing 6G wireless systems and the next-generation Wi-Fi systems and future research directions are discussed.