A sensor-based power management system for sustainable computing in large environments

A considerable fraction of the total energy consumed by the Internet is due to an inefficient utilization of computing equipment in homes and offices, such as Personal Computers (PCs), printers, and IP phones. PCs are often left on even when they are not used, while printers and IP phones are typically kept always on, especially in offices. Significant energy and economic savings could, thus, be achieved through a more intelligent utilization of computing equipment, especially in large organizations. In this paper we propose an automated power-management system for large environments, that suspends PCs when they are not in use and re-activate them as soon as the user is supposed to use them again. The proposed solution leverages different sensors for presence detection that are already in the environment and, thus, do not introduce any additional cost.