Power Save Adaptation Algorithm for Multimedia Streaming to Mobile Devices

Batteries have not followed the exponential technological improvements of other mobile device related hardware, such as CPU, memory and wireless networking. Battery power often introduces significant limitations to the use of mobile devices and their applications, including those involved in multimedia streaming that have significant high power requirements. This paper proposes a power save adaptation algorithm for mobile multimedia streaming that aims to increase streaming time given limited battery power resources. The multimedia streaming process is divided into three stages: data reception, decoding and playing and power saving solutions for each of these stages are proposed. These power save mechanisms are then combined to give the power save algorithm. Preliminary tests results show that significant increases in battery lifetime have been achieved when the power save mechanisms proposed in this paper are used.