Multi-Layer Tracing of Android Applications for Energy-Consumption Analysis

• Author / Creator

  Feghhi, Meysam

• The continuous increase in the use of mobile devices has been driving research in the improvement of the energy consumption of these devices and the applications running on them. In this thesis, we present a tool that helps Android developers understand the implications of their changes to the application's energy profile throughout its evolutionary development. The presented tool is an extension over GreenAdvisor, an already existing tool that predicts energy changes based on the changes in the application's system-call profile and then looks for the responsible code using a set of predefined relevant keywords. Towards improving the GreenAdvisor, GreenAdvisor 2.0 instruments the application source code and collects, in addition to system-call counts, system-call and method-call timing information and uses this evidence to locate the methods responsible for changes in the energy profile. In order to evaluate our work, we synthetically produced conditions in which the decisions of GreenAdvisor 2.0 can be marked as correct or incorrect. Using this information, we then quantified the accuracy and effectiveness of GreenAdvisor 2.0 and compared them to that of the original GreenAdvisor and random guess. We found that GreenAdvisor 2.0 made sensibly more correct decisions than the other two competitor approaches in cases where the system-call profile was impacted significantly by a re-factoring commit which synchronously consumed more energy.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • System-call tracing
  • Method-call tracing
  • Android
  • Energy-consumption

• Graduation date

  Fall 2017

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3057D63B

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.