Energy conservation is an important problem in battery powered portable computers. The objective of this project is to investigate software system techniques for conserving energy, using the knowledge about current workload and application requirements. More specifically, the project will: (1) Develop a systematic approach for evaluating energy conservation techniques whether they are implemented in hardware or software. The evaluation will guide the energy driven hardware and software design. (2) At the operating system level, develop techniques to control the devices using the mechanisms provided by the hardware to modify the behavior of common services for lower energy consumption. (3) At the architecture level, design memory architectures to permit trade-off between performance and energy consumption. (4) Develop file systems that exploit information about applications' usage patterns and the availability of low- power solid-state memory. (5) At the application level, design program interfaces for conveying information to operating system about the usage patterns and performance requirements. A combination of simulation and actual implementations will be used to evaluate the techniques described above. The educational component of this CAREER project will include the development of laboratory-oriented operating systems courses for both undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, undergraduate students enrolled in independent studies will be encouraged to participate in the research and development of software tools.
