Dynamic voltage scaling for real-time multi-task scheduling using buffers

This paper proposes energy efficient real-time multi-task scheduling (EDF and RM) algorithms by using buffers. The buffering technique overcomes a drawback of previous approaches by utilizing the slack time of a system fully. It increases the CPU utilization and averages the workload of a system, so it enhances the effectiveness of the DVS technique. We target multimedia applications where a slight buffering delay is tolerable within a latency constraint. We modify the state transition and queue handling mechanism of multi-task scheduling in the kernel. In experiments, our algorithms achieve up to 44% of energy consumption saving for EDF scheduling and 49% for RM scheduling with realistic task set configurations and reasonable machine specifications.