As wireless technology continues its rapid evolution, the sixth-generation (6G) networks are capable of offering exceptionally high data transmission rates as well as low latency, which is promisingly able to meet the high-demand needs for digital twins (DTs). Quality-of-experience (QoE) in this situation, which refers to the users’ overall satisfaction and perception of the provided DT service in 6G networks, is significant to optimize the service and help improve the users’ experience. Despite progress in developing theories and systems for digital twin transmission under 6G networks, the assessment of QoE for users falls behind. To address this gap, our paper introduces the first QoE evaluation database for human digital twins (HDTs) in 6G network environments, aiming to systematically analyze and quantify the related quality factors. We utilize a mmWave network model for channel capacity simulation and employ high-quality digital humans as source models, which are further animated, encoded, and distorted for final QoE evaluation. Subjective quality ratings are collected from a well-controlled subjective experiment for the 400 generated HDT sequences. Additionally, we propose a novel QoE evaluation metric that considers both quality-of-service (QoS) and content-quality features. Experimental results indicate that our model outperforms existing state-of-the-art QoE evaluation models and other competitive quality assessment models, thus making significant contributions to the domain of 6G network applications for HDTs.

Massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) enables ultra-high throughput and low latency for tile-based adaptive virtual reality (VR) 360° video transmission in wireless network. In this paper, we consider a massive MIMO system where multiple users in a single-cell theater watch an identical VR 360° video. Based on tile prediction, base station (BS) deliveries the tiles in predicted field of view (FoV) to users. By introducing practical supplementary transmission for missing tiles and unacceptable VR sickness, we propose the first stable transmission scheme for VR video. we formulate an integer non-linear programming (INLP) problem to maximize users’ average quality of experience (QoE) score. Moreover, we derive the achievable spectral efficiency (SE) expression of predictive tile groups and the approximately achievable SE expression of missing tile groups, respectively. Analytically, the overall throughput is related to the number of tile groups and the length of pilot sequences. By exploiting the relationship between the structure of viewport tiles and SE expression, we propose a multi-lattice multi-stream grouping method aimed at improving the overall throughput for VR video transmission. Moreover, we analyze the relationship between QoE objective and number of predictive tile. We transform the original INLP problem into an integer linear programming problem by setting the predictive tiles groups as some constants. With variable relaxation and recovery, we obtain the optimal average QoE. Extensive simulation results validate that the proposed algorithm effectively improves QoE.

High fidelity analysis are utilized in modern engineering design optimization problems which involve expensive black-box models. For computation-intensive engineering design problems, efficient global optimization methods must be developed to relieve the computational burden. A new metamodel-based global optimization method using fuzzy clustering for design space reduction (MGO-FCR) is presented. The uniformly distributed initial sample points are generated by Latin hypercube design to construct the radial basis function metamodel, whose accuracy is improved with increasing number of sample points gradually. Fuzzy c-mean method and Gath-Geva clustering method are applied to divide the design space into several small interesting cluster spaces for low and high dimensional problems respectively. Modeling efficiency and accuracy are directly related to the design space, so unconcerned spaces are eliminated by the proposed reduction principle and two pseudo reduction algorithms. The reduction principle is developed to determine whether the current design space should be reduced and which space is eliminated. The first pseudo reduction algorithm improves the speed of clustering, while the second pseudo reduction algorithm ensures the design space to be reduced. Through several numerical benchmark functions, comparative studies with adaptive response surface method, approximated unimodal region elimination method and mode-pursuing sampling are carried out. The optimization results reveal that this method captures the real global optimum for all the numerical benchmark functions. And the number of function evaluations show that the efficiency of this method is favorable especially for high dimensional problems. Based on this global design optimization method, a design optimization of a lifting surface in high speed flow is carried out and this method saves about 10 h compared with genetic algorithms. This method possesses favorable performance on efficiency, robustness and capability of global convergence and gives a new optimization strategy for engineering design optimization problems involving expensive black box models.

Space-filling and projective properties of design of computer experiments methods are desired features for metamodelling. To enable the production of high-quality sequential samples, this article presents a novel deterministic sequential maximin Latin hypercube design (LHD) method using successive local enumeration, notated as sequential-successive local enumeration (S-SLE). First, a mesh-mapping algorithm is proposed to map the positions of existing points into the new hyper-chessboard to ensure the projective property. According to the maximin distance criterion, new sequential samples are generated through successive local enumeration iterations to improve the space-filling uniformity. Through a number of comparative studies, several appealing merits of S-SLE are demonstrated: (1) S-SLE outperforms several existing LHD methods in terms of sequential sampling quality; (2) it is flexible and robust enough to produce high-quality multiple-stage sequential samples; and (3) the proposed method can improve the overall performance of sequential metamodel-based optimization algorithms. Thus, S-SLE is a promising sequential LHD method for metamodel-based optimization.

Understanding and predicting viewer attention in omnidirectional videos (ODVs) is crucial for enhancing user engagement in virtual and augmented reality applications. Although both audio and visual modalities are essential for saliency prediction in ODVs, the joint exploitation of these two modalities has been limited, primarily due to the absence of large-scale audio-visual saliency databases and comprehensive analyses. This paper comprehensively investigates audio-visual attention in ODVs from both subjective and objective perspectives. Specifically, we first introduce a new audio-visual saliency database for omnidirectional videos, termed AVS-ODV database, containing 162 ODVs and corresponding eye movement data collected from 60 subjects under three audio modes including mute, mono, and ambisonics. Based on the constructed AVS-ODV database, we perform an in-depth analysis of how audio influences visual attention in ODVs. To advance the research on audio-visual saliency prediction for ODVs, we further establish a new benchmark based on the AVS-ODV database by testing numerous state-of-the-art saliency models, including visual-only models and audio-visual models. In addition, given the limitations of current models, we propose an innovative omnidirectional audio-visual saliency prediction network (OmniAVS), which is built based on the U-Net architecture, and hierarchically fuses audio and visual features from the multimodal aligned embedding space. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed OmniAVS model outperforms other state-of-the-art models on both ODV AVS prediction and traditional AVS prediction tasks. The AVS-ODV database and the OmniAVS model are available at: https://github.com/IntMeGroup/AVS-ODV.