Supporting Mulit-User Mobile Virtual Reality with Edge Cloud (MUVR)

University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed MUVR, a novel system that enhances the scalability of mobile virtual reality (VR) by utilizing the edge cloud to support multiple users simultaneously. Current mobile VR systems face limitations due to the computational and battery constraints of smartphones, making them less powerful than tethered VR systems. MUVR solves this by offloading intensive VR computations to nearby edge clouds, improving VR performance for multiple users. This technology enables widespread adoption of mobile VR by efficiently reducing redundant computations and minimizing data transmission, providing a scalable and high-performance solution. 

Description

MUVR enhances the performance and scalability of mobile VR applications by leveraging the computing power of edge clouds. The system identifies and reuses redundant VR computations shared between multiple users, reducing the workload on edge servers and ensuring smoother VR experiences. It employs techniques like frame memoization, where previously rendered background frames are cached and reused, and delta image transmission, which sends only the distinct portions of VR frames rather than full frames to head-mounted displays (HMDs). These optimizations allow MUVR to support large numbers of VR users without overwhelming the limited computational resources of edge clouds, improving user experience in shared virtual environments.in medical research and therapy development.

Applications

- Multi-user virtual reality systems for gaming and entertainment
- Mobile virtual reality for educational and training environments
- Collaborative virtual workspaces
- Large-scale public VR applications and events

Advantages

MUVR offers several significant advantages over existing mobile VR solutions. By reusing redundant VR frame data across users and employing efficient frame transmission techniques, MUVR significantly reduces the computational load on both mobile devices and edge clouds. This leads to improved scalability, allowing many users to engage in high-quality VR experiences simultaneously without a drop in performance. Furthermore, MUVR is a pure software-based solution, compatible with existing Android and VR engines like Unity, and does not require specialized hardware, making it cost-effective and easy to implement.

Invention Readiness

MUVR has been developed as a software prototype and is compatible with existing VR application engines like Unity. The prototype has demonstrated improved performance for multi-user VR systems, and its software-based design ensures easy integration with mainstream mobile operating systems such as Android. The invention is currently in the software development stage and has shown promising results in real-world applications, reducing computational load and enhancing VR performance.

IP Status

Copyright