NSF Award
1900012
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are now experiencing rapid growth and debuting into mainstream markets driven by the significant performance improvement of computing hardware and the revolution of graphics and display technologies. Both VR and AR are increasingly adopted in smartphones for providing rich experience to mobile users. However, the limited hardware resources in mobile devices can barely support the tremendous resource requirements by VR/AR technology and the demand for a good user experience. There are several key challenges that dramatically degrade user experience when enabling VR/AR apps on smartphones. For example, when the VR user shifts her/his eyes slightly, the computer is unable to provide an image that corresponds to the new view in a timely manner. This delay causes motion anomalies and unsatisfying user experience. Other challenges for mobile VR/AR are limited battery life and increased heat dissipation. The investigators on this project are leveraging the unique features of VR/AR and exploring a synergetic architecture-system program to tackle the above performance, battery life, and thermal challenges, thus, enhancing mobile VR/AR user experience. This project will open the door for next generation mobile platforms that provide high-quality low-power VR/AR services to satisfy mobile users. This project will also contribute to society through engaging under-represented groups, and outreach to high-school students, curriculum development on Internet of Things, and disseminating research infrastructure for education and training.<br/><br/>This project contains four objectives, including (1) approximate computing to eliminate unnecessary workloads in mobile AR/VR to achieve threefold benefits on performance, power, and thermal without sacrificing the user perceived image quality and output accuracy; (2) emerging technologies (e.g., processing-in-memory, multiple chip module (MCM)-GPU) enabled mobile VR/AR for performance/power optimization; (3) exploiting dynamic thermal energy harvesting to cool hotspots, prolong battery life and improve performance; and (4) integration of the key research innovations and cross-technology optimizations to maximize the performance/power/thermal enhancement.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
