Markov decision process based energy-efficient scheduling for slice-parallel video decoding

We consider the problem of energy-efficient scheduling for slice-parallel video decoders on multicore systems with Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling (DVFS) enabled processors. We rigorously formulate the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP), which simultaneously considers the on-line scheduling and per-core DVFS capabilities; the power consumption of the processor cores and caches; and the loss tolerant and dynamic nature of the video decoder. The objective is to minimize long-term power consumption subject to a minimum Quality of Service (QoS) constraint related to the decoder's throughput. We evaluate the proposed scheduling algorithm using traces generated from a cycle-accurate multiprocessor ARM simulator.