An Energy Abstraction Layer for Mobile Computing Devices

Abstract

Since the growing popularity of smartphones and tablet devices, energy-efficiency in mobile computing is an increasingly interesting topic. But in case of software development engineering energy-efficiency is widely neglected, even clear and simply applicable means to measure and visualize energy consumption caused by software usage is still in its infancy. This work provides basic research in the field of measuring energy and power related information on mobile computing devices and proposes an abstract specification for implementing a measurement infrastructure on different mobile computing devices. MotivationIn Germany every year more then 600 Mrd. kWh of electrical energy are consumed 1 . From this, more than 10% are accounted for information and communication technology [11]. Here, Energy consumption of mobile devices counts for ca. 11.6% [10], which results in half of the capacity of Germanys 2 most powerful nuclear power plant ISAR 2. Following the idea, that the mobile calculating power increases in the same speed, as in the past years, there is an optimization potential of about 20% to 40% of the ICT related power consumption if a holistic approach for optimizing every connected part can be found [6]. Even more, reducing energy consumption of mobil devices will also increase the lifetime of batteries due to fewer required charge cycles. But, in case of software development and engineering, improving energy-efficiency of mobile devices is widely neglected [3].There exists many chances for optimizing energy consumption on mobile computing devices. This can be archived on different levels, ranging from hardware, operating system, and machine code to application level [4]. Low-level software optimization and improving machine code are adequately studied [8]. Optimizing energy consumption from a software point of view may vary from using alternative algorithms, resource substitution, applying compression techniques purposefully, using user profiles for energy efficient process scheduling, applying alternative hard/software-sensors, identifying and eliminating energy code smells etc. [1].Validating these approaches and showing their con-1 http://www.ag-energiebilanzen.de/componenten/ download.php?filedata=1326461230.pdf&filename= BRD_Stromerzeugung1990-2011%2020Dez2011&mimetype= application/pdf 2 http://www.kernenergie.de/kernenergie/themen/ kernkraftwerke/kernkraftwerke-in-deutschland.php tribution on saving energy requires sufficiently grained measurement techniques. Offline measurement, by using external measurement devices, is not always possible, since this requires breaking mobile devices. Online measurement, by using software means provided by the operation system, often does not furnish sufficient precision and relies on certain details of the operating system capabilities. This work aims at providing an Energy Abstraction Layers (EAL) in the field of mobile computing. For this purpose the EAL will abstract measurement capabilities and provide unified access to them independently from the devi...

Evaluating the Impact of Design Pattern Usage on Energy Consumption of Applications for Mobile Platform

“…The factors like warming, greenhouse gas footprint or energy usage have to be viewed as for the durability of the process of software production. In [21], the authors have presented standard techniques for the measurement of energy consumption of application running on mobile devices. These standard techniques include a set of requisites, an implementation and an API, which give three totally different measurement methods resulting in accuracy.…”