Adaptive VR Streaming Bandwidth Management via Head Tracking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Virtual reality (VR) streaming services face interruptions due to high bandwidth requirements, necessitating a method to adaptively manage bandwidth and provide varying image qualities based on user head tracking information to mitigate buffering issues.
Innovation Solution
An electronic device estimates next view angle information using tracking, acceleration, and event data to provide images with different qualities, selectively transmitting high-quality images for likely viewed areas and lower quality for less probable areas, and dynamically adjusts streaming quality based on available bandwidth.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If high-quality images are transmitted for all viewing angles in VR streaming, then image quality is improved, but bandwidth consumption increases significantly causing buffering and interruptions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by transmitting high-quality image data only for the current viewing angle and expected next viewing angles, while transmitting lower-quality or compressed data for other viewing angles. This is achieved through head tracking information that identifies which portions of the 360-degree VR content the user is actually viewing, allowing the system to allocate bandwidth selectively to relevant regions rather than uniformly across all viewing angles.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses head tracking information to predict future viewing angles and pre-transmits or prioritizes transmission of image data for these anticipated viewing directions. By analyzing the user's head movement patterns and acceleration data, the system can prepare and send high-quality data for angles the user is likely to view next, reducing buffering interruptions before they occur.
2Productivity
If bandwidth is reduced to prevent buffering, then network efficiency is improved, but image quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent dynamically adjusts image quality and transmission bandwidth based on real-time conditions including current viewing angle, predicted next viewing angles, buffer status, and network bandwidth availability. The system continuously monitors these parameters and adapts the quality of transmitted image data accordingly, maintaining high quality where needed while reducing quality elsewhere to optimize overall network efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes multiple parameters including image resolution, compression ratio, and transmission priority based on the identified viewing angles and available bandwidth. For high-priority viewing angles, the system uses lower compression ratios and higher resolution, while for low-priority angles, it applies higher compression to conserve bandwidth, thereby maintaining acceptable overall image quality while improving network efficiency.
3Reliability
If uniform high quality is provided for all VR content, then user experience is improved, but device complexity increases due to processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the 360-degree VR content into different viewing angle portions and processes each segment differently based on its priority. The head tracking system divides the spherical video content into regions of interest (current and predicted viewing angles) and regions of lower interest, applying different processing and transmission qualities to each segment, thereby reducing overall processing complexity while maintaining high-quality experience for relevant content.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present disclosure relates to a communication technique for converging IoT technology with a 5G communication system for supporting a higher data transmission rate than a 4G system, and a system therefor. The present disclosure may be applied to intelligent services based on 5G communication technology and IoT-related technology (e.g. smart homes, smart buildings, smart cities, smart cars, connected cars, healthcare, digital education, retail business, services related to security and safety, etc.). A method for receiving image data for a virtual-reality streaming service by an electronic device according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises: a step in which the electronic device determines whether to execute an adaptive virtual-reality streaming service on the basis of a bandwidth state; and a step in which, if it is determined to execute the adaptive virtual-reality streaming service, the electronic device requests and receives, from a server, the image data for the adaptive virtual-reality streaming service on the basis of head-tracking information and bandwidth information collected in advance.