Extending the battery life of mobile device by computation offloading

Abstract

The need for increased performance of mobile device directly conflicts with the desire for longer battery life. Offloading computation to resourceful servers is an effective method to reduce energy consumption and enhance performance for mobile applications. Today, most mobile devices have fast wireless link such as 4G and Wi-Fi, making computation offloading a reasonable solution to extend battery life of mobile device. Android provides mechanisms for creating mobile applications but lacks a native scheduling system for determining where code should be executed. We present Jade, a system that adds sophisticated energy-aware computation offloading capabilities to Android applications. Jade monitors device and application status and automatically decides where code should be executed. Jade dynamically adjusts offloading strategy by adapting to workload variation, communication costs, and device status. Jade minimizes the burden on developers to build applications with computation offloading ability by providing easy-to-use Jade API. Evaluation shows that Jade can effectively reduce up to 37% of average power consumption for mobile device while improving application performance.