Advancing Energy Testing of Android

Reyhaneh Jabbarvand

Event Details
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Talk:
4 p.m., Avery 115

Reception:
3:30 p.m., Avery 348

Reyhaneh Jabbarvand, Google Ph.D. Fellowship Recipient

Ph.D. Candidate , University of California, Irvine (UCI)

Abstract

The utility of a smartphone is limited by its battery capacity and the ability of its hardware and software to efficiently use the device’s battery. To properly characterize the energy consumption of an app and identify energy defects, it is critical that apps are properly tested, i.e., analyzed dynamically to assess the app’s energy properties. However, currently there is a lack of testing tools for evaluating the energy properties of apps. As a result, for energy testing, developers are relying on tests intended for evaluating the functional correctness of apps. Are such tests adequate for revealing energy defects in apps? If not, what are the properties of tests that can effectively find energy inefficiencies in apps? How can we automatically generate such tests? Answers to these questions are the subject of my presentation.

In the first part of this talk, I will introduce ?Droid, a mutation testing technique that can be used by developers to assess the adequacy of their test suite for revealing energy-related defects. Applying ?Droid to real-world Android apps with available test suites showed that current Android testing tools are in fact ineffective at finding energy defects. Based on the insights from this study, I identified characteristics of tests that can effectively find energy issues in Android apps. In the second part of this talk, I will present COBWEB, a search-based energy testing technique that automatically generates energy tests. Experimental results on real-world Android apps demonstrate not only COBWEB’s ability to effectively and efficiently test energy behavior of apps, but also its superiority over prior techniques by finding a wider and more diverse set of energy defects.

Speaker Bio

Reyhaneh Jabbarvand is a PhD candidate in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Her research interests include analysis and testing of mobile apps to address security and energy issues. She has been awarded the Google PhD Fellowship in Programing Technology and Software Engineering for her work on advancing energy testing of Android. She is the lead author of several publications that have appeared in top software engineering venues, including ICSE, ESEC/FSE, and ISSTA. More info about her can be found at: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~jabbarvr/