Energy Aware Lossless Data Compression

Wireless transmission of a bit can require over 1000 times more energy than a single 32-bit computation. It would therefore seem desirable to perform significant computation to reduce the number of bits transmitted. If the energy required to compress data is less than the energy required to send it, there is a net energy savings and consequently, a longer battery life for portable computers. This paper reports on the energy of lossless data compressors as measured on a StrongARM SA-110 system. We show that with several typical compression tools, there is a net energy increase when compression is applied before transmission. Reasons for this increase are explained, and hardwareaware programming optimizations are demonstrated. When applied to Unix compress, these optimizations improve energy efficiency by 51%. We also explore the fact that, for many usage models, compression and decompression need not be performed by the same algorithm. By choosing the lowest-energy compressor and decom...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: MOBISYS
• Authors: Kenneth C. Barr, Krste Asanovic
• Keywords: MOBISYS 2003, Net Energy Increase, Net Energy Savings, Optimizations Improve Energy, Wireless Networks