The Power Broker: Intelligent Power Management for Mobile Computers

Technology has improved processor speed and memory densities at exponential rates. Rapid advances in portable computing have resulted in laptop computers with performance and features comparable to their desktop counterparts. Battery technology has failed to keep pace, decreasing the usefulness of mobile computers and portable wireless devices. We provide a detailed analysis of power consumption typically encountered in a networked laptop computer and the power management methods currently used. We then show how interaction between independent power consumers results in inefficient use of energy resources and propose the Power Broker as a means for orchestrating energy use with the goal of extending battery life. The Power Broker's resource management algorithms exploit an abundant resource (CPU power) to conserve a scarce one (battery energy). Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-96-12. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/cis_reports/191 The Power Broker: Intelligent Power Management for Mobile Computers Sanjay Udani Jonathan Smith University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science Computer and Information Science Department Philadelphia, PA 19104-6389 The Power Broker: Intelligent Power Management for Mobile Computers* Sanjay Ldani Jonathan Smith Distributed Svstems Laboratory Department of Computer Information Science University of Pennsylvania {udani, jms) @dsl. cis.upenn. edu