Extended Reality (XR) has stringent throughput and delay requirements that are hard to meet with current wireless technologies. Missing these requirements can lead to worsened picture quality, perceived lag between user input and corresponding output, and even dizziness for the end user. In this paper, we study the capability of upcoming Wi-Fi 7, and its novel support for Multi-Link Operation (MLO), to cope with these tight requirements. Our study is based on simulation results extracted from an MLO-compliant simulator that realistically reproduces VR traffic. Results show that MLO can sustain VR applications. By jointly using multiple links with independent channel access procedures, MLO can reduce the overall delay, which is especially useful in the uplink, as it has more stringent requirements than the downlink, and is instrumental in delivering the expected performance. We show that using MLO can allow more users per network than an equivalent number of links using SLO. We also show that while maintaining the same overall bandwidth, a higher number of MLO links with narrow channels leads to lower delays than a lower number of links with wider channels.

翻译：扩展现实（XR）对吞吐量和延迟有着严格的要求，现有无线技术难以满足。若无法达到这些要求，可能导致图像质量下降、用户输入与相应输出之间存在感知延迟，甚至引发终端用户的眩晕感。本文研究了即将推出的 Wi-Fi 7 及其对多链路操作（MLO）的新型支持应对这些严苛要求的能力。我们的研究基于从符合 MLO 标准的模拟器中提取的仿真结果，该模拟器真实地复现了 VR 流量。结果表明，MLO 能够支持 VR 应用。通过联合使用具有独立信道接入流程的多条链路，MLO 可以降低整体延迟，这对上行链路尤其有益，因为上行链路比下行链路的要求更为严格，并且对于实现预期性能至关重要。我们证明，与使用相同数量链路的单链路操作（SLO）相比，采用 MLO 可以在网络中容纳更多用户。我们还表明，在保持相同总带宽的情况下，采用较多窄信道的 MLO 链路比采用较少宽信道的链路能带来更低的延迟。