An uneven-dual-core processor based mobile platform for facilitating the collaboration among various embedded electronic devices

Abstract

Mobile device-centric multi-device collaborative computing has been proved as an optimal alternative, which satisfies the mobile users? increasing expectations towards richer people-centric computing services on mobile platforms. However, many non-smart embedded devices, which are characterized by poor processing power and limited wireless network connection capabilities, are not utilized effectively in current collaborative computing paradigm yet. In this paper, a universal mobile platform, Ver-Comp (Versatile Companion), with a dedicated processor, wireless connectivity and customized mobile OS (Operating System), is proposed to serve as the smart companion device of various non-smart electronic devices (such as digital camera, printer, electronic toy, microwave oven, heart rate monitor and etc.). Non-smart embedded electronic devices are therefore turned to be smart objects so as to cooperate with current smart mobile devices or cloud platforms seamlessly. The processing capabilities of current smart mobile devices are thus augmented indirectly and their battery lives are also extended significantly by migrating partial tasks to the smart objects. In order to meet the requirements of high energy efficiency and quick boot time, an uneven-dual-core architecture processor with multi-OS support is proposed. Furthermore, a Multipleclient Raindrop File System (MRFS) and a File Allocation Table eXtension (FAT-X) file system are also developed to make the data synchronization and virtual access across multiple heterogeneous computing platforms easy and flexible. Finally, three fascinating applications are implemented to demonstrate the flexibility and promising usage of the proposed platform.