We first seek to develop a fundamental understanding of the factors that affect energy-consumption in apps, with an emphasis on how they cause energy-consumption to differ across usage patterns. Based on this understanding, we propose to design and implement a user-centric battery management system, TIDE (TIDE stands for Tool for IDentifying Energy hungry applications on smartphones). TIDE has two primary goals. First, it seeks to determine and report to the user, which apps on her phone dominate the consumption of the phone's battery. The second objective of TIDE is to incorporate targeted solutions that change the mode of operation for some of the user' s services, so as to trade-off performance for energy efficiency. In other words, it seeks to offer the user the choice of continuing to use a specific set of services at reduced quality or performance, towards conserving her battery.
Towards fulfilling the above goals, we propose the following tasks:
We expect that the proposed work will have an immediate impact in empowering users with an ability to control their battery usage. It will create a public awareness of types of smartphone activities that will result in high battery drainage. The proposed work will also impact education at UCR and UCD in significant ways. New courses on system design and implementation will be introduced. Further, the PIs will undertake outreach efforts where they will visit nearby K-12 schools to inspire students about computer science research. The PIs are committed to fostering diversity and advising women.
Aspects of energy consumption in wireless networks and on wireless devices (e.g., the LTE energy model) is being integrated into the wireless undergraduate course (CS 169) at UC Riverside. Part of the graduate course will include recent research efforts on energy consumption on smartphones.
Various components of the proposed research are planned to be integrated into the Senior Design Sequence (ECS193A and ECS193B) at UC Davis.