Evaluating energy consumption on low-end smartphones

The relationship between battery consumption in smartphones and the usage statistics of a phone is direct. Modern smartphones, even low-end, are equipped with multiple wireless technologies, e.g. GSM, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Each of these technologies has a different energy consumption profile. A wireless mesh project in the Mankosi community in rural South Africa is about to introduce low-end smartphones onto the network. The mesh network is powered with solar-charged batteries because the community at present does not have electricity. Local residents also use these batteries to recharge cell phones at a nominal cost. Introduction of smartphones will increase the recharge frequency as phone usage will increase; thus draining a phone battery more quickly, as well as escalate recharge costs. Thus, the smartphones must be chosen and used effectively in order for batteries to last longer. Related work identifies WiFi wireless technology as the most battery efficient way of transfer when compared to GSM, 3G and Bluetooth. This research proposes experiments to further investigate energy efficiency of WiFi in low-end smartphones that we intend to use for local and breakout voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls and data services, on a rural wireless mesh network

An energy-saving model for service-oriented mobile application development

The development of mobile applications that combine Web Services from different providers --also referred as mashup applications-- is growing as a consequence of the ubiquity of bandwidth connections and the increasing number of available Web Services. In this context, providing higher maintainability to Web Service applications is a worth of matter, because of the dynamic nature of the Web. EasySOC (1) solves this problem by decoupling mashups from application components. However, mobile devices have energy constraints because of the limitations in the current battery capacities. This work proposes a model that builds on the benefits of the EasySOC approach and improves this latter by assisting developers to select Web Service combinations that reduce energy consumption. We evaluated the feasibility of the model through a case study in which we compare the estimations provided by the model against real energy measurements. The results indicated that our model had an efficacy of 81% for the analyzed case study.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

An energy-saving model for service-oriented mobile application development

The development of mobile applications that combine Web Services from different providers --also referred as mashup applications-- is growing as a consequence of the ubiquity of bandwidth connections and the increasing number of available Web Services. In this context, providing higher maintainability to Web Service applications is a worth of matter, because of the dynamic nature of the Web. EasySOC solves this problem by decoupling mashups from application components. However, mobile devices have energy constraints because of the limitations in the current battery capacities. This work proposes a model that builds on the benefits of the EasySOC approach and improves this latter by assisting developers to select Web Service combinations that reduce energy consumption. We evaluated the feasibility of the model through a case study in which we compare the estimations provided by the model against real energy measurements and two handsets. The results indicated that our model had an efficacy of 81-85% for the analyzed case study.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Integrated Management of Interface Power (IMIP) Framework

La présence importante de plusieurs réseaux sans-fils de différentes portées a encouragée le développement d’une nouvelle génération d’équipements portables sans-fils avec plusieurs interfaces radio. Ainsi, les utilisateurs peuvent bénéficier d’une large possibilité de connectivité aux réseaux sans-fils (e.g. Wi-Fi [1], WiMAX [2], 3G [3]) disponibles autour. Cependant, la batterie d’un nœud mobile à plusieurs interfaces sera rapidement épuisée et le temps d’utilisation de l’équipement sera réduit aussi. Pour prolonger l’utilisation du mobile les standards, des réseaux sans-fils, on définie (individuellement) plusieurs états (émission, réception, sleep, idle, etc.); quand une interface radio n’est pas en mode émission/réception il est en mode sleep/idle où la consommation est très faible, comparée aux modes émission/réception. Pourtant, en cas d’équipement portable à multi-interfaces radio, l’énergie totale consommée par les interfaces en mode idle est très importante. Autrement, un équipement portable équipé de plusieurs interfaces radio augmente sa capacité de connectivité mais réduit sa longévité d’utilisation. Pour surpasser cet inconvénient on propose une plate-forme, qu'on appelle IMIP (Integrated Management of Interface Power), basée sur l’extension du standard MIH (Media Independent Handover) IEEE 802.21 [4]. IMIP permet une meilleure gestion d’énergie des interfaces radio, d’un équipement mobile à multi-radio, lorsque celles-ci entrent en mode idle. Les expérimentations que nous avons exécutées montrent que l’utilisation de IMIP permet d'économiser jusqu'a 80% de l'énergie consommée en comparaison avec les standards existants. En effet, IMIP permet de prolonger la durée d'utilisation d'équipements à plusieurs interfaces grâce à sa gestion efficace de l'énergie.The large availability of wireless networks of different ranges, has contributed to the development of new generation of handheld devices with multi-radio interfaces. Thus, the end-users are able to achieve ubiquitous and seamless connectivity across heterogeneous wireless networks (e.g., Wi-Fi [1], WiMAX [2] and 3G_LTE [3]). However, a mobile node with multi-radio interfaces has its battery energy consumed rapidly, which reduces the operation/usage time of the device. To improve battery usage, wireless network standards have defined (individually) different interface states (transmit, receive, idle, sleep, etc.); when an interface is not transmitting or receiving, it goes to sleep/idle state where energy consumption is very low compared to transmit and receive states. However, in the case of multi-radio handheld devices, the total energy consumed by the interfaces in sleep/idle state is significant. Thus, equipping a mobile device with multiple interfaces increases its seamless connectivity but reduces its operation/usage longevity. To overcome this inconvenient, we proposed a framework, called IMIP (Integrated Management of Interface Power) that consists of an extension of MIH (Media Independent Handover) IEEE 802.21 standard [4]. IMIP allows a better power management of radio interfaces of a multi-radio mobile node; indeed, it reduces considerably energy consumption. The basic idea behind IMIP is to shut down any interface in idle mode and use a proxy that emulates the interface; the proxy wakes up the interface when it receives a connection request directed to this interface. IMIP requires at least one interface in active mode. Experiments show that using IMIP enables a saving of up to 80% of power consumption compared with existing power management standards. Thus, IMIP allows longer usage of multiple interface devices thanks to its effective energy management