Hibernus: sustaining computation during intermittent supply for energy-harvesting systems

A key challenge to the future of energy-harvesting systems is the discontinuous power supply that is often generated. We propose a new approach, Hibernus, which enables computation to be sustained during intermittent supply. The approach has a low energy and time overhead which is achieved by reacti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Balsamo, Domenico (Author), Weddell, Alex (Author), Merrett, Geoff V. (Author), Al-Hashimi, Bashir M. (Author), Brunelli, Davide (Author), Benini, Luca (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015-03.
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Summary:A key challenge to the future of energy-harvesting systems is the discontinuous power supply that is often generated. We propose a new approach, Hibernus, which enables computation to be sustained during intermittent supply. The approach has a low energy and time overhead which is achieved by reactively hibernating: saving system state only once, when power is about to be lost, and then sleeping until the supply recovers. We validate the approach experimentally on a processor with FRAM nonvolatile memory, allowing it to reactively hibernate using only energy stored in its decoupling capacitance. When compared to a recently proposed technique, the approach reduces processor time and energy overheads by 76-100% and 49-79% respectively.