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.