Tactile Internet: the next evolution of the IoT

The way that humans interact with their environment is fundamental. Senses allow humans to perceive the world around them and decide whether to adapt to an environment or modify an environment to suit them.

The vision

Tactile Internet is defined by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers as ‘envisioned to create a paradigm shift from the content-orientated communications to steer/control-based communications by enabling real-time transmission of haptic information (touch, actuation, motion, vibration, surface texture) over internet in addition to the conventional audio visual and data traffics.’

It will be the next evolution of IoT, incorporating machine-to-machine and human-to-machine interactions.

The Tactile Internet will enable a plurality of new applications, products and services. Humans and machines will be able to interact with their environment in real time, while mobile and within a certain spatial communication range.

How does it work?

Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) enables the interconnection of smart devices. These devices are usually low-power and resource-constrained sensors with limited functionality designed to transmit low-rate, latency-tolerant data. The Tactile Internet will enable haptic interaction with visual feedback by utilising 5G technology. Haptic refers to the sense of touch, particularly the perception and manipulation of objects using touch and the sense of the relative positioning of the parts of one’s body. 

Initial indications of the Tactile Internet emerged in 2014. Apple debuted its Taptic Engine, a combination of tap and haptic, in 2015, which has since been installed on MacBooks, iPhones, iPads and the Apple Watch. This technology sends notification alerts through vibrations combined with audio.

Meta is working with researchers from Carnegie Mellon University to produce an artificial skin material, ReSkin. This will provide a versatile skin for AI research on tactile perception.

Applications

The Tactile Internet aims to revolutionise various aspects of our everyday life due to its high availability and security, reaction times and reliability. It will lead to more realistic and immersive social interaction in all environments.

 It is progressing towards adding a new dimension to precise human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interaction as it delivers a latency low enough to build real-time interactive systems. Key examples will be in industry, robotics and telepresence, virtual reality, augmented reality, healthcare, road traffic, education, and smart grid.

Furthermore, the Tactile Internet will contribute to the solution of difficult challenges faced by society including the challenge of an ageing population and the transition to renewable energy production.

The Tactile Internet provides potential for better quality care from the healthcare industry. This is made possible by combining the expertise of medical professionals connected via the Tactile Internet during remote diagnosis and treatment, this is just one example of its capabilities.

The Tactile Internet will also have a huge impact on education and lifelong learning, personal safety, traffic in smart cities, and energy, in the future.

Existing network infrastructure

To obtain 1ms end-to-end latency and a system response of 1ms, the chain between sensors and actuators needs to be understood. Technical requirements of the Tactile Internet place huge demands on future networks’ latency, reliability, security, system architecture, sensors and actuators, access networks, and mobile edge-clouds. Existing network infrastructures are conceptually and technically insufficient to support the emerging Tactile Internet applications.

Also, supporting standardisation systems are forecast to evolve in line with the diversity of the Tactile Internet’s application areas and associated stakeholder ecosystem.

As with the IoT, the full possibilities of the Tactile Internet will not be realised until full low latency 5G becomes more established. Of course, many of the underlying technologies have been present for years however widespread implementation has been constrained by the limits of current networks.