As more and more computing work is pushed out to mobile devices, power consumption becomes increasingly important to deliver the balance of performance and battery life end users need. We intend to study the effects that different software programs, including operating systems and applications have on computer power consumption. Further, equipped with this knowledge we aim to optimize the system for power consumption depending on the current workload. Our goal in this project is to develop a set of recommendations as to which software programs are the most power-aware for a given task, as well as to develop a low-power power management mode that can disable unnecessary tasks to yield improved runtime above that currently attained by hardware power management tactics such as Dynamic Voltage & Frequency Scaling or reducing display brightness.
We believe that the addition of a software-centric power management approach to existing PC power management can deliver greater power performance by taking advantage of factors which a hardware-only approach cannot react to.
PowerTOP - Linux utility to find sources of energy-wasting CPU wakeups.