Smartphone App Illuminates Power Consumption
Battery-powered cell phones serve as hand-held computers and more these days. We run power-hungry applications while we depend on the phones to be available in emergencies.
“Today, we expect our phones to realize more and more functions, and we also expect their batteries to last,” said Lide Zhang, a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and one of the application's developers. “PowerTutor will help make that possible.”
PowerTutor will enable software developers to build more efficient products, said Birjodh Tiwana, a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and another of the program's developers. Tiwana said PowerTutor will allow users to compare the power consumption of different applications and select the leanest version that performs the desired task. Users can also watch how their actions affect the phone's battery life.
PowerTutor shows in real time how four different phone components use power: the screen, the network interface, the processor, and the global positioning system receiver.
To create the application, the researchers disassembled their phones and installed electrical current meters. Then they determined the relationship between the phone's internal state (how bright the screen is, for example) and the actual power consumption. That allowed them to produce a software model capable of estimating the power use of any program the phone is running with less than 5 percent error.
PowerTutor can also provide a power consumption history. It is available free at the Android Market at http://www.android.com/market/.
PowerTutor was developed under the direction of associate professor Robert Dick and assistant professor Morley Mao, both in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Lei Yang, a software engineer at Google. The work is supported by Google and the National Science Foundation, and was done in collaboration with the joint University of Michigan and Northwestern University Empathic Systems Project.
For more information:
PowerTutor: http://powertutor.org/
Robert Dick: http://ziyang.eecs.umich.edu/~dickrp/
Morley Mao: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~zmao/
Michigan Engineering: The University of Michigan College of Engineering is ranked among the top engineering schools in the country. At more than $130 million annually, its engineering research budget is one of largest of any public university. Michigan Engineering is home to 11 academic departments and a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. The college plays a leading role in the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute and hosts the world class Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Michigan Engineering's premier scholarship, international scale and multidisciplinary scope combine to create The Michigan Difference.
Media Contact
More Information:
http://www.engin.umich.edu/All latest news from the category: Power and Electrical Engineering
This topic covers issues related to energy generation, conversion, transportation and consumption and how the industry is addressing the challenge of energy efficiency in general.
innovations-report provides in-depth and informative reports and articles on subjects ranging from wind energy, fuel cell technology, solar energy, geothermal energy, petroleum, gas, nuclear engineering, alternative energy and energy efficiency to fusion, hydrogen and superconductor technologies.
Newest articles
Webb captures top of iconic horsehead nebula in unprecedented detail
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula….
Cost-effective, high-capacity, and cyclable lithium-ion battery cathodes
Charge-recharge cycling of lithium-superrich iron oxide, a cost-effective and high-capacity cathode for new-generation lithium-ion batteries, can be greatly improved by doping with readily available mineral elements. The energy capacity and…
Novel genetic plant regeneration approach
…without the application of phytohormones. Researchers develop a novel plant regeneration approach by modulating the expression of genes that control plant cell differentiation. For ages now, plants have been the…
