Data Freshness in Mixed-Memory Intermittently-Powered Systems

TL;DR

This paper analyzes data freshness in intermittently-powered IoT sensors with mixed-memory architectures, deriving AoI metrics and proposing strategies to optimize performance under environmental uncertainties.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of AoI in mixed-memory IoT systems and proposes an improved checkpointing strategy for better resilience.

Findings

Derived average PAoI and AoI for mixed-memory systems.

Compared data freshness across different memory architectures.

Proposed an alternative TDC scheme to enhance resilience.

Abstract

Age of Information (AoI) is a key metric to understand data freshness in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In this paper we analyse an intermittently-powered IoT sensor - with mixed-memory (volatile and non-volatile) architecture - that uses a Time-Dependent Checkpointing (TDC) scheme. We derive the average Peak Age of Information (PAoI) and average AoI of the system, and use these metrics to understand which device parameters most significantly influence performance. We go on to consider how the average PAoI of a mixed-memory system compares with entirely volatile or entirely non-volatile architecture, and also introduce an alternative TDC strategy to improve system resilience in unpredictable environmental conditions.