An ns-3 Implementation of a Bursty Traffic Framework for Virtual Reality Sources

TL;DR

This paper presents the first VR traffic model based on real traffic traces, implemented in ns-3, to facilitate analysis and improvement of VR communication performance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel traffic model for VR applications derived from real traces and provides an open-source ns-3 implementation for the community.

Findings

First VR traffic model based on real traces

Open-source ns-3 implementation available

Enables analysis of end-to-end VR communication metrics

Abstract

Next-generation wireless communication technologies will allow users to obtain unprecedented performance, paving the way to new and immersive applications. A prominent application requiring high data rates and low communication delay is Virtual Reality (VR), whose presence will become increasingly stronger in the years to come. To the best of our knowledge, we propose the first traffic model for VR applications based on traffic traces acquired from a commercial VR streaming software, allowing the community to further study and improve the technology to manage this type of traffic. This work implements ns-3 applications able to generate and process large bursts of packets, enabling the possibility of analyzing APP-level end-to-end metrics, making the source code as well as the acquired VR traffic traces publicly available and open-source.