Title: Experiments on data processing algorithms: energy efficiency of wireless and untethered field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based embedded systems

Authors: Pawel Piotr Czapski, Andrzej Sluzek

Addresses: Nanyang Technological University, School of Computer Engineering, Block N4, Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore. ' Nanyang Technological University, School of Computer Engineering, Block N4, Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore

Abstract: In this paper, we present preliminary results regarding the data processing approach to energy efficiency of wireless and untethered field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based embedded systems. Re-configurability of FPGA allows for significant flexibility in its applications to embedded systems. However, high power consumption (caused by such flexibility) influences the designing process significantly. Moreover, radio communication adds additional power consumption to the overall energy budget. We present few ideas (addressing local data processing versus communicating processed data) that are envisaged to decrease the total energy spent on communicating data bits. Energy efficiency is addressed at the high-level of the designing process (the system-level). It is envisaged that results of our experiments can be also applied to other embedded systems applications, not limited to FPGA-based only.

Keywords: data processing algorithms; energy efficiency; wireless sensor networks; WSNs; wireless networks; wireless sensor nodes; FPGA embedded systems; system level; Handel-C; field programmable gate arrays.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICT.2009.026425

International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 2009 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.4 - 18

Published online: 11 Jun 2009 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article