Titulo Estágio
Data Visualization strategies to support Battery-saving decisions
Áreas de especialidade
Engenharia de Software
Local do Estágio
DEI-FCTUC
Enquadramento
Mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets are pervasive in our personal and professional activities, which is actually drawing significant attention for them to be energy efficient.
Indeed, consumer satisfaction regarding a smartphone is highly dependent on its battery uptime. For developers, battery uptime is also crucial, as abnormal drainage frequently justifies bad reviews in app stores. Finally, the amounts of energy spent by mobile devices are heavily affecting sustainability.
While extending the battery uptime of a mobile device is a relevant and timely problem, there are many challenges towards solving it.
For once, locating energy problems in Android applications is difficult and reproducing these energy problems is labor-intensive. Developers have to continuously and extensively test their applications on different environments using various devices, conducting detailed energy profiling in order to know how much their application use the devices hardware components, such as the CPU to figure out the root causing the energy anomalies.
On the other hand, even when we find strategies that we can suggest to mobile device users to increase the uptime of their batteries, we need to convey these strategies to them in the most appropriate way. This project will explore and propose visualization strategies that can support users with actionable decisions they can take to make the most of their batteries.
Objetivo
The main goals to achieve within this project are:
- to study and critically analyse the state of the art in data and software visualization, specifically targeting end users with no specific IT education or training;
- to propose a catalogue of visualization strategies to provide energy-efficiency-specific information;
- to incorporate such strategies within a mobile application for Android;
- to assess the merits of both the strategies and their implementation.
This project will be conducted within the GreenHub initiative:
https://greenhubproject.org/
which has collected over 40 million data samples whose systematic exploration is expected to reveal information on how to extend the battery uptime of Android devices.
The interested candidate will benefit from the ongoing effort to explore the GreenHub dataset. Indeed, while several insights are expected to be produced within such effort, the candidate’s research work will be conducted to realize the best strategies to convey this energy related information to end users.
Also, the candidate will work on implementing the proposed strategies within BatteryHub, an Android application that has also been developed within GreenHub.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
- Trimester 1: Study the literature, the tools and the frameworks that are available for data and software visualization.
- Trimester 2: Propose a catalogue of visualization strategies to reveal energy-saving strategies. Write an intermediate report.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
- Trimester 3: Extend an already existing Android application with the proposed visualization strategies;
- Trimester 4: Assess the effectiveness of both the visualization strategies and their implementation by conducting empirical validations and/or studies. Thesis writing.
Condições
The eligible student will have at disposal all the necessary computational platforms, tools and devices.
He/she will work within a research team that is working on related issues.
Orientador
João Paulo Fernandes, UC (jpf@dei.uc.pt); Jácome Cunha, UMinho (jacome@di.uminho.pt)
jpf@dei.uc.pt 📩