Wireless Point Cloud Streaming Experiment Using IEEE 802.11ax

Abstract

Wireless point cloud streaming is a key technology in digital twin-enabled smart cities for maintaining city-scale spatial information. Various point cloud coding and compression algorithms have been studied to facilitate efficient transmission. However, real-field experiments are required to reveal the characteristics using small devices, which support the city from the edges. In this paper, we conducted field experiments to analyze the characteristics of wireless point cloud streaming. First, we proposed a middleware to mediate between the robot operating system and the network interface to easily configure the transmission protocol. Thereafter, we implemented the middleware on edge devices and analyzed the performance using IEEE 802.11ax based on the following perspectives: processing time versus transmission frequency, point cloud and packet transmission success rates versus distance between nodes, and point cloud transmission success rate versus mobility of nodes. The first experiment revealed that small edge devices with the proposed middleware could handle high-frequency streaming without exceeding the maximum time of every period. The second experiment revealed the relationship between data rate and transmission success rates of point clouds and packets. Finally, the third experiment revealed that the mobility of the nodes caused variations in the transmission success rate.