Hybrid Unicast-Broadcast for XR

A multi-path solution for transmitting data between devices using multiple protocols, with a focus on real-time point cloud video transmission.

Introduction

This project provides a simple way to transmit data between devices using numerous protocols. The project is designed to be simple to use and easy to understand. The main focus is on transmitting point cloud data in real-time between devices, but the project can be used to transmit any data.

Supported Protocols

• DASH
• Websockets
• WebRTC
• FLUTE

Getting Started

To start using this project, you first need to clone the repository. You can do this by running the following command:

git clone <repository-url.git>

After cloning the repository, the submodules need to cloned as well. You can do this by running the following command:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Now, proceed by making the scripts executable, using this recursive command:

chmod -R +x *.sh

Now, the next steps are to install the dependencies and build the project.

Dependencies

The project has the following dependencies, which need to be installed:

• CMake
• Ninja
• MinGW (Used for cross-compiling to Windows)
• smcroute

On linux, you can install these dependencies by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install cmake ninja-build mingw-w64 smcroute

rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

In addition, you need to install the Rust toolchain. You can do this by running the following command:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Finally, you need to install Docker and Docker Compose. You can do this by following the instructions on the Docker Compose website.

Building the Project

To build the project, you need to run the following commands:

./build.sh

Parameters are defined in the build script and the scripts called by it.

The following parameters are recommend to build the project:

/build.sh --unstable --release

To speed up the build process during development, you can use --no-tests, but this will not run the unit tests and also not update the non-headless client.

Running the Project

To run the project, you need to run the following commands:

./run.sh

Parameters are defined in the run script and the scripts called by it.

The first parameter is the component to run, which can be one of the following:

• --client: Runs the client component.
• --server: Runs the server component.
• --metrics: Runs the metrics component.
• --monitoring: Runs the monitoring component.
• --controller: Runs the controller component, used to manage nodes, experiments and data. sudo is required if you want to use Mininet.
• --agent: Runs agent component, used to connect a node to the controller.
• --update-targets: Used to update the monitoring targets.

The following command runs the controller component in release mode.

sudo ./run.sh --controller --release

This is the recommended way to test the project. The controller can now be managed using the web interface at http://localhost:3000/?release=true.

Contact

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at casper.haems@ugent.be or tim.wauters@ugent.be.

References

If you use (parts of) this code, please cite the following paper:

@INPROCEEDINGS{Haem2509:Efficient,
    AUTHOR="Casper Haems and Matthias {De Fr{\'e}} and Tim Wauters and Filip {De Turck}",
    TITLE="Towards Efficient Transport for {Real-Time} Immersive Applications over Hybrid Networks",
    BOOKTITLE="2025 16th International Conference on Network of the Future (NoF) (NoF 2025)",
    ADDRESS="Montreal, Canada",
    PAGES=5,
    DAYS=30,
    MONTH=sep,
    YEAR=2025,
    KEYWORDS="volumetric video; hybrid broadcast-unicast; multi-path transport; real-time streaming; immersive media; 6DoF communication",
    ABSTRACT="Immersive telepresence demands high data rates and low latency, yet no single commercial data path reliably meets these needs. Fine-grained content selection also remains underdeveloped. This work proposes a hybrid, multi-path delivery framework combining broadcast and unicast into a single service. A lightweight base scene is broadcast via File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE), ensuring no viewer ever sees a fully blank scene, while viewer-specific enhancements are steered over unicast. An open-source testbed is released to investigate the impact of network impairments, instrument common protocols, and enable reproducible experiments. On high-quality volumetric video (up to 100k points per frame at 30 frames per second), the hybrid design (i) keeps latency below 40 ms while scaling quality with unicast bandwidth, (ii) reduces server and network load compared to pure unicast, and (iii) masks typical wireless loss patterns with only 15\% Forward Error Correction (FEC) overhead. These findings show that treating broadcast and unicast as complementary channels is crucial for scalable Extended Reality (XR) services."
}

Funding

This work has been funded by the European Union (SPIRIT project, Grant Agreement 101070672, https://www.spiritproject.eu/).

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.