Compensation of Communication Latency in Remote Monitoring Systems by Video Prediction

Remote video monitoring over networks inevitably introduces a certain degree of communication latency. Although numerous studies have been conducted to reduce latency in network systems, achieving “zero-latency” is fundamentally impossible for video monitoring. To address this issue, we investigate a practical method to compensate for latency in video monitoring using video prediction techniques. We apply the lightweight PredNet to predict future frames, and their image qualities are evaluated through quantitative image quality metrics and subjective assessment. The evaluation results suggest that for simple movements of the robot arm, the prediction time to generate future frames can tolerate up to 333 ms. The video prediction method is integrated into a remote monitoring system, and its processing time is also evaluated. We define the object-to-display latency for video monitoring and explore the potential for realizing a zero-latency remote video monitoring system. The evaluation, involving simultaneous capture of the robot arm's movement and the display of the remote monitoring system, confirms the feasibility of compensating for the object-to-display latency of several hundred milliseconds by using video prediction. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach can function as a new compensation method for communication latency.