Title:  Characterizing and Controlling Program Behavior Using Execution-Time Variance

Committee:

Dr. Pande , Advisor

Dr. Yalamanchili, Co-Advisor

Dr. Patricio Vela, ECE

Dr. Richard Vuduc, CS

Dr. Abhijit Chatterjee, ECE

Dr. Umakishore Ramachandran, CS

Abstract: 

Immersive applications, such as computer gaming, computer vision and video codecs,
are an important emerging class of applications with QoS requirements that are difficult
to characterize and control using traditional methods. This thesis proposes new techniques
reliant on execution-time variance to both characterize and control program behavior. The
proposed techniques are intended to be broadly applicable to a wide variety of immersive
applications and are intended to be easy for programmers to apply without needing to gain
specialized expertise.
In particular, we create new QoS controllers that programmers can easily apply to their applica-
tions to achieve desired application-specific QoS objectives on any platform or application
data-set, provided the programmers verify that their applications satisfy some simple do-
main requirements specific to immersive applications. The controllers adjust programmer-
identified knobs every application frame to effect desired values for programmer-identified
QoS metrics. The control techniques are novel in that they do not require the user to pro-
vide any kind of application behavior models, and are effective for immersive applications
that defy the traditional requirements for feedback controller construction.