Thesis Proposal
Date:
Democratization of Battery-less Computing
Three pillars of democratization are equity, access, and agency. An equitable system lowers the barrier to entry for novice users and programmers. I address equity in my first paper Battery-free MakeCode(IMWUT ‘22), a compiler modification to the popular education tool Microsoft’s MakeCode for Microbit. This compiler modification analyses, reorganizes, and inserts code into a novice’s program so that even someone who is just learning how to code can make a battery-free device with off-the-shelf hardware. I believe that access means expanding battery-less computing to hobbyists, makers, and researchers. One of the most popular maker, hobbyist, and research oriented computing platforms today is the Arduino environment. In my paper User-directed Assembly Code Transformations Enabling Efficient Batteryless Arduino Applications(IMWUT ‘24), I developed a low-level binary rewriting tool to enable battery-less computing. This tool provides user level macros to control assembly level battery-less operation. This allows Arduino users with popular ARM chipset boards to make an intermittent device with off-the-shelf hardware. Last but not least, giving a user agency over their battery-less program means education and feedback about how their intermittent device will run before flashing their code. The Intermittent Computing Energy Toolkit(in progress) revisits Microsoft’s MakeCode for Microbit and overhauls its debugging and simulator environment with dynamic and static energy analysis. This energy analysis allows the user to detect intermittence bugs and test their program with various energy harvesters before deploying their device.