Prabal Dutta, Mark Feldmeier, Jay Taneja, Joseph Paradiso, David Culler

Abstract

We present iCount, a new energy meter design. For many systems that have a built-in switching regulator, adding a single wire between the regulator and the microcontroller enables real-time energy metering. iCount measures energy usage by counting the switching cycles of the regulator. We show that switching frequency changes nearly linearly with load current for a variety of regulators.