Streaming 360° VR Video With Statistical QoS Provisioning in mmWave Networks From Delay and Rate Perspectives

Millimeter-wave <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\!$ </tex-math></inline-formula>(mmWave) technology has emerged as a pivotal catalyst for unleashing the full potential of 360° virtual reality (VR). Nonetheless, the explosive growth of VR services, combined with the quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning issues of mmWave, poses formidable challenges in wireless resource allocation for mmWave-enabled 360° VR. In this paper, we propose an innovative 360° VR streaming architecture that addresses three underexplored issues: overlapping fields-of-view (FoVs), statistical QoS provisioning (SQP), and loss-tolerant active data discarding. Specifically, we first design an overlapping FoV-based optimal joint unicast and multicast (JUM) task assignment scheme, which significantly conserves wireless resources by implementing non-redundant task allocation. Leveraging stochastic network calculus (SNC), we develop a comprehensive SNC-based SQP theoretical framework from delay and rate perspectives. Additionally, we propose two corresponding optimal adaptive joint resource allocation and active-discarding (ADAPT-JRAAD) transmission schemes to minimize resource consumption while guaranteeing SQP performance from delay and rate perspectives, respectively. Extensive simulations demonstrate the outstanding performance of the designed optimal JUM task assignment scheme in conserving wireless resources. Moreover, comprehensive comparisons against six benchmarks validate the superiority of the proposed two ADAPT-JRAAD schemes in resource utilization, flexible rate control, and robust queue management.