Power consumption optimization for real-time applications: Results on a MAC application implementation

This article proposes a CPU resources control module to be included in a real-time embedded system, and using platform resources tuning capabilities such as Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS). This control module has been designed to be generic enough to be adapted to any system, but precise enough to take into account real-time constraints of such systems. The solution proposed does not need any knowledge and pre-execution of the business code of the active components of the system to be monitored. The solution is demonstrated on the Medium Access Control (MAC) of a radio protocol implemented on a Freescale IMX6 board with power gains of more than 40% with frequency scale variations from 800MHz to 400MHz.