Fixing sensor-related energy bugs through automated sensing policy instrumentation

As mobile applications (apps) become more and more complex, many apps contain various energy bugs, which may cause energy wastes that might reduce the battery life to as short as several hours. Among them, sensor-related bugs such as sensor data underutilization is one of the most common energy bugs. Instead of trying to detect these energy bugs, this paper proposes a method to fix sensor data underutilization automatically through instrumentation of existing apps. App-specific energy-aware sensing policies can be written to the apps via an automated instrumentation process, which can also be customized by users if needed. The proposed technique is easy to apply as it does not need to modify the operating system or the apps. At the same time, it also works for existing legacy apps, which makes it practical and feasible for a wide-range of mobile apps. Experimental results on popular Android apps show that we are able to achieve significant energy savings through automated instrumentation and rebuilding the targeted apps.