QuarkOS: Pushing the Operating Limits of Micro-Powered Sensors

As sensors penetrate into deeply embedded settings such as implantables, wearables, and textiles, they present new challenges due to their tiny energy buffers and extremely low harvesting conditions under which they need to operate. However, existing low-power operating systems are not designed with the goal of scaling down to such severely constrained environments. We address these challenges with QuarkOS, an OS that scales down by carefully dividing every communication, sensing, and computation task into tiny fragments (e.g. half-bit, one pixel) and introduces sleeps between such fragments to re-charge. In addition QuarkOS is designed to have minimal run-time overhead, while still adapting performance to harvesting conditions. Our results are promising and show continuous communication from an RF-powered CRFID can occur at a third of the harvesting levels of prior approaches, and continuous image sensing to be performed with a tiny solar panel under natural indoor light.