Enabling Extended Reality Over 5G with Distributed Computing

Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term for a family of immersive technologies, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR). XR technologies blend physical, virtual, and digital experiences through spatial computing, allowing users to immerse and interact with an environment for both virtual and physical experiences. Split XR is a distributed computing framework where on-device processing is augmented by high-performance edge servers over a 5G connection. Split XR can reduce device power consumption while enabling photorealistic graphics. 5G is suitable for scaling Split XR services due to the high bandwidth, low latency, and ability to support multiple users in a wide area. This article summarizes the Split XR distributed computing architecture and its challenges. It presents a Split XR end-to-end validation over 5G for VR and AR in real testbeds. This work also presents a system-level approach to deploy 5G XR systems, leveraging 3GPP features up to release 18, to optimize the performance of Split XR systems.