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In-person human interaction relies on our spatial perception of each other and our surroundings. Current remote communication tools partially address each of these aspects. Video calls convey real user representations but without spatial interactions. Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) experiences are immersive and spatial but often use virtual environments and characters instead of real-life representations. Bridging these gaps, we introduce DualStream, a system for synchronous mobile AR remote communication that captures, streams, and displays spatial representations of users and their surroundings. DualStream supports transitions between user and environment representations with different levels of visuospatial fidelity, as well as the creation of persistent shared spaces using environment snapshots. We demonstrate how DualStream can enable spatial communication in real-world contexts, and support the creation of blended spaces for collaboration. A formative evaluation of DualStream revealed that users valued the ability to interact spatially and move between representations, and could see DualStream fitting into their own remote communication practices in the near future. Drawing from these findings, we discuss new opportunities for designing more widely accessible spatial communication tools, centered around the mobile phone.
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Repurposing Mu-Mimo Downlink For Joint Wireless Communications And Imaging Via Virtual Users
In this paper, we propose a method to repurpose the multi-user MIMO downlink transmission for joint wireless communication and imaging. The key idea is to introduce the concept of virtual users in the communication coverage area and use the existing MUMIMO beamforming methods to jointly beamform towards real and virtual users. The virtual users are placed to complement the locations of actual users, with the objective to illuminate the scene as uniformly as possible. We study a single-parameter tradeoff, introduced by a power split parameter between real and virtual users. We demonstrate via simulated examples that the virtual user concept is effective in providing a scalable imaging and communications performance tradeoff for cases where the real users are clustered in small geographical areas.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1956297
- PAR ID:
- 10568540
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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