PEER ASSISTED MOBILE DEVICE BATTERY EXTENSION SYSTEM

• US 20140189388A1
• Filed: 12/28/2012
• Published: 07/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lynar, Timothy M., Steer, Kent C. B., Vecchiola, Cristian, Wagner, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,110,661 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/320
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/329 by task scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3058 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring environmental properties or parameters of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring of power, currents, temperature, humidity, position, vibrations thermal management in cooling arrangements of a computing system G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/02 Power saving arrangements in wired systems H04L12/12; signaling of mobile application services, e.g. low battery notifications H04W4/20
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0261 managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0264 by selectively disabling software applications
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A system configured to manage battery energy of a mobile device includes a primary mobile device and at least one peer device. The primary mobile device includes a power unit, a main communication module to electrically communicate with a peer device, and a peer assisted module in electrical communication with the power unit and the main communication module. The peer assisted module determines an energy level of the energy unit, and determines a task to be executed by the peer device. The peer device receives the task transmitted from the primary mobile device. The peer device further includes a peer process management module that executes at least one computation that completes the task, and communicates a completed task to the primary mobile device.

Claims

1. A system configured to manage battery energy of a mobile device, comprising:

a primary mobile device comprising;

a power unit configured to power the primary mobile device;

a primary process management module configured to determine at least one application stored on the primary mobile device and to determine a task associated with the at least one application;

a main communication module configured to electrically communicate with a peer device different from the primary mobile device; and

a peer assisted module in electrical communication with the power unit and the main communication module, the peer assisted module configured to determine an energy level of the power unit, and to transmit the task from the primary mobile device via the main communication module; and

at least one peer device comprising;

a peer communication module configured to receive the task from the primary mobile device; and

a peer process management module in electrical communication with the peer communication module, the peer process management module configured to execute at least one computation that completes the task, and to communicate a completed task to the primary mobile device in response to completing the at least one computation.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the peer assisted module transmits the task to the at least one peer device based on at least one of the energy level of the primary mobile device, a number of computations for executing the task and a duration of the computations.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the peer assisted module transmits the task to the at least one peer device when the energy level of the primary mobile device is below a predetermined threshold level.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the peer assisted module further determines a cost value based on an amount of computations for completing the task and a duration of the computations, and transmits the task to the at least one peer device when the cost value is below a cost threshold value.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the peer assisted module outputs an offload request to transmit the task to the at least one peer device.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the peer communication module of the at least one peer device is configured to detect the offload request and to receive the task in response outputting an accept command to the primary mobile device.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the primary process management module includes a task scheduler configured to locally execute the task in response to at least one of the cost value exceeding a cost threshold and a failure to receive the accept command.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the primary process module receives an input from the user indicating that at least one application includes a task to be communicated to the peer device for execution.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one of the primary process management mobile and the peer device determines a monetary value based on at least one of the amount of computations and the duration of the computations.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the primary mobile device includes an operating system that operates the primary mobile device, and wherein the main process management module and the peer assisted module are integrated in the operating system.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the peer assisted module is implemented as a peer assisted application module that is stored separately from an operating system of the primary mobile device, the peer assisted application module configured to receive a task from a peer assisted application and to communicate with the power unit and main communication module via a data communication socket interface.

12. A primary mobile device to offload at least one task of a stored application to reduce energy consumption, the primary mobile device comprising:

a power unit configured to power the primary mobile device;

a main communication module configured to electrically communicate with a peer device that is different from the primary mobile device; and

a peer assisted module in electrical communication with the power unit and the main communication module, the peer assisted module configured to determine an energy level of the power unit and transmit the at least one task to the peer device in response to determining the energy level is below an energy threshold.

13. The primary mobile device of claim 12, further comprising a process management module in electrical communication with the peer assisted module, the process management module configured to determine at least one application stored on the primary mobile device and to determine a task associated with the at least one application.

14. The primary device of claim 13, wherein the peer assisted module further determines a cost value based on a number of computations for completing the task and a duration of the computations, and transmits the task based on at least one of the energy level and the cost value.

15. The primary device of claim 14, wherein the peer assisted module outputs a request to transmit a task associated with an application stored on the primary mobile device to an available peer device to execute at least one computation that completes the task.

16. The primary mobile device of claim 15, wherein the process management module further includes a task scheduler module configured to locally execute the task in response to at least one of the cost value exceeding the cost threshold and a failure to identify an available peer device.

17. The primary mobile device of claim 16, wherein the primary mobile device includes a cell phone, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, and a mobile media device.

18. The primary device of claim 17, wherein the peer assisted module is integrated with an operating system of the primary mobile device.

19. The primary device of claim 17, wherein the peer assisted module is downloadable application-based module that is stored separately from an operating system of the primary mobile device.

20. A peer device to execute at least one task received from a primary mobile device, the peer device comprising:

a peer communication module configured to electrically communicate with the primary mobile device; and

a peer process management module configured to execute at least one computation to complete the at least one task, and to communicate a completed task to the primary mobile device in response to completing the at least one computation.

21. The peer device of claim 20, wherein the peer communication module performs a registration of the peer device as an available peer device and determines whether the primary mobile device requests an available peer device to execute the at least one task in response to the registration.

22. The peer device of claim 21, wherein the peer communication module deregisters the peer device in response to determining an energy level of the peer device is below an energy level threshold.

23. The peer device of claim 22, wherein the communication module deregisters the peer device in response to determining a load of the process management module exceeds a load threshold.

24. The peer device of claim 23, wherein the peer device includes a cell phone, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a mobile media device, a cloud server microcontroller that controls operation of a cloud server and an automotive microcontroller.