AFV: enabling application function virtualization and scheduling in wearable networks

Smart wearable devices are widely available today and changing the way mobile applications are being developed. Applications can dynamically leverage the capabilities of wearable devices worn by the user for optimal resource usage and information accuracy, depending on the user/device context and application requirements. However, application developers are not yet taking advantage of these cross-device capabilities. We thus design AFV (Application Function Virtualization), a framework enabling automated dynamic function virtualization/scheduling across devices, simplifying context-aware application development. AFV provides a simple set of APIs hiding complex framework tasks and continuously monitors context/application requirements, to enable the dynamic invocation of functions across devices. We show the feasibility of our design by implementing AFV on Android, and the benefits for the user in terms of resource efficiency and quality of experience with relevant use cases.