Reinforcement Learning-Based Mobile AR/VR Multipath Transmission With Streaming Power Spectrum Density Analysis

Multi-path transmission control protocol (MPTCP) is an extension of TCP that enables the concurrent transmission of information through different network interfaces (e.g., Cellular, Wi-Fi, 802.11p, and so on) available at terminal side. It is well known that MPTCP can provide significant advantages in bandwidth aggregation and transmission stability. Unfortunately, path diversity can limit bandwidth aggregation efficiency and incur higher delays. These issues become critical when in presence of emerging mobile AR and VR applications, which are bandwidth hungry, time-sensitive and exhibit abrupt variations of the bitrate. To address these issues, we propose the Reinforcement Learning-based mobile AR/VR multipath transmission with streaming Power Spectrum Density analysis (RL-PSD). RL-PSD analyses the Power Spectrum Density (PSD) of the AR/VR input stream to extract its features. Then, both the input stream and network features are considered to model the MPTCP congestion control as an reinforcement learning process. Finally, a two-stage reinforcement algorithm is proposed to optimize transmission performance. RL-PSD has been tested in both single-terminal and multi-terminal scenarios: results show that it outperforms the other advanced solutions conceived to support the multipath transmission of AR/VR streams.