Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

Realizing Immersive Communications in Human Digital Twin by Edge Computing Empowered Tactile Internet: Visions and Case Study

Hao Xiang, Changyan Yi, Kun Wu, Jiayuan Chen, Jun Cai, Dusit Niyato, Xuemin, Shen

TL;DR

The paper tackles realizing immersive communications for human digital twins by introducing IC-HDT-ECoTI, an edge-computing empowered tactile Internet framework. It formalizes a three-domain system architecture (physical master, edge interaction, HDT) and develops design guidelines, including tactile encoding, edge collaboration, auxiliary decision-making, and multi-modal feedback evaluation. A physical therapy case study demonstrates significant improvements in latency, jitter, and perceived realism over conventional HDT setups, illustrating practical benefits and feasibility. The work highlights open issues such as predictive haptic processing, security/privacy, high-fidelity modeling, and edge-enabled intelligence as directions to advance HDT-enabled applications in real-world settings.

Abstract

Human digital twin (HDT) is expected to revolutionize the future human lifestyle and prompts the development of advanced human-centric applications (e.g., Metaverse) by bridging physical and virtual spaces. However, the fulfillment of HDT poses stringent demands on the pervasive connectivity, real-time feedback, multi-modal data transmission and ultra-high reliability, which urge the need of enabling immersive communications. In this article, we shed light on the design of an immersive communication framework for HDT by edge computing empowered tactile Internet (namely IC-HDT-ECoTI). Aiming at offering strong interactions and extremely immersive quality of experience, we introduce the system architecture of IC-HDT-ECoTI, and analyze its major design requirements and challenges. Moreover, we present core guidelines and detailed steps for system implementations. In addition, we conduct an experimental study based on our recently built testbed, which shows a particular use case of IC-HDT-ECoTI in physical therapy, and the obtained results indicate that the proposed framework can significantly improve the effectiveness of the system. Finally, we conclude this article with a brief discussion of open issues and future directions.

Realizing Immersive Communications in Human Digital Twin by Edge Computing Empowered Tactile Internet: Visions and Case Study

TL;DR

The paper tackles realizing immersive communications for human digital twins by introducing IC-HDT-ECoTI, an edge-computing empowered tactile Internet framework. It formalizes a three-domain system architecture (physical master, edge interaction, HDT) and develops design guidelines, including tactile encoding, edge collaboration, auxiliary decision-making, and multi-modal feedback evaluation. A physical therapy case study demonstrates significant improvements in latency, jitter, and perceived realism over conventional HDT setups, illustrating practical benefits and feasibility. The work highlights open issues such as predictive haptic processing, security/privacy, high-fidelity modeling, and edge-enabled intelligence as directions to advance HDT-enabled applications in real-world settings.

Abstract

Human digital twin (HDT) is expected to revolutionize the future human lifestyle and prompts the development of advanced human-centric applications (e.g., Metaverse) by bridging physical and virtual spaces. However, the fulfillment of HDT poses stringent demands on the pervasive connectivity, real-time feedback, multi-modal data transmission and ultra-high reliability, which urge the need of enabling immersive communications. In this article, we shed light on the design of an immersive communication framework for HDT by edge computing empowered tactile Internet (namely IC-HDT-ECoTI). Aiming at offering strong interactions and extremely immersive quality of experience, we introduce the system architecture of IC-HDT-ECoTI, and analyze its major design requirements and challenges. Moreover, we present core guidelines and detailed steps for system implementations. In addition, we conduct an experimental study based on our recently built testbed, which shows a particular use case of IC-HDT-ECoTI in physical therapy, and the obtained results indicate that the proposed framework can significantly improve the effectiveness of the system. Finally, we conclude this article with a brief discussion of open issues and future directions.
Paper Structure (24 sections, 4 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 24 sections, 4 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Framework of IC-HDT-ECoTI
  3. System Architecture
  4. Physical Master Domain
  5. Edge Interaction Domain
  6. HDT Domain
  7. Key Design Requirements and Challenges
  8. Strong Interactions between Physical and Virtual Twins
  9. Extremely Immersive Quality of Experience
  10. Key Steps and Core Guidelines
  11. Component Selection
  12. Tactile Information Encoding and Decoding
  13. Edge Computing and Collaborative Processing
  14. Auxiliary Decision
  15. Diverse Feedback and Evaluation
  16. ...and 9 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: The system architecture of IC-HDT-ECoTI, including the physical master domain, edge interaction domain and HDT domain.
  • Figure 2: Key steps and core guidelines for IC-HDT-ECoTI implementations.
  • Figure 3: A case study of IC-HDT-ECoTI in physical therapy.
  • Figure 4: An objective evaluation under two different frameworks.