Understanding energy consumption of sensor enabled applications on mobile phones

Recent research in ubiquitous and mobile computing uses mobile phones and wearable accelerometers to monitor individuals' physical activities for personalized and proactive health care. The goal of this project is to measure and reduce the energy demand placed on mobile phones that monitor individuals' physical activities for extended periods of time with limited access to battery recharging and mobile phone reception. Many issues must be addressed before mobile phones become a viable platform for remote health monitoring, including: security, reliability, privacy, and, most importantly, energy. Mobile phones are battery-operated, making energy a critical resource that must be carefully managed to ensure the longest running time before the battery is depleted. In a sense, all other issues are secondary, since the mobile phone will simply not function without energy. In this project, we therefore focus on understanding the energy consumption of a mobile phone that runs MIT wockets, physical activity monitoring applications, and consider ways to reduce its energy consumption.