Processor Usage Control for User Input Responsiveness
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Solution Overview
Problem
In mobile devices, an overloaded processor can lead to sluggish performance in responding to user-related tasks, such as keystrokes or status bar updates, due to saturation from non-interactive tasks like video decoding, resulting in adverse user experience.
Innovation Solution
A method is implemented to determine if the processor usage exceeds a threshold by sensing user-related events and degrading periodic tasks, such as video decoding, by removing frames and increasing the task period to reduce processor usage, thereby ensuring timely processing of user-related tasks without significantly affecting the task's performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the processor performs non-interactive tasks like video decoding, then throughput is improved, but response time to user input deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The scheduling algorithm dynamically adjusts task priorities and processor allocation based on real-time system state. When user input is detected, the system dynamically shifts processor resources from non-interactive tasks to interactive tasks, ensuring timely response while maintaining high throughput during normal operation
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors processor utilization and task completion status to adjust scheduling decisions. By detecting when the processor is saturated by non-interactive tasks, the system provides feedback to the scheduler to prioritize interactive tasks, creating a closed-loop control that balances throughput and response time
2Reliability
If the processor is allocated to periodic tasks, then task completion is ensured, but user-related task performance deteriorates when processor is saturated
Solution Approach 1:
The scheduling algorithm dynamically adjusts the priority and resource allocation of periodic tasks based on system conditions. When user-related tasks are detected, the system temporarily reduces the resource allocation to periodic tasks to ensure smooth user interaction, then restores normal allocation when the processor is no longer saturated
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes scheduling parameters such as task priority levels and time slices based on processor saturation detection. When the processor is overloaded with periodic tasks, the system adjusts parameters to allow user-related tasks to preempt or share processor time, maintaining both task completion and user experience
Data Source
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AI summary
A system and method for controlling processor usage according to user related tasks (312) is provided. For periodic tasks, by increasing the period at which the task (302) runs, the average processor usage can be reduced to meet a particular target which can ensure that user input is not affected by the periodic task. As such, the periodic task can be intelligently degraded and altered to compensate for such degradation in order to free up enough processor usage space so as to not adversely affect user input.