Battery-Free Game Boy

de Winkel, J.; Kortbeek, V.; Hester, Josiah; Pawełczak, Przemysław

doi:10.1145/3411839

Battery-Free Game Boy

Title

Battery-Free Game Boy

Author

de Winkel, J. (Student TU Delft)
Kortbeek, V. (TU Delft Embedded Systems)
Hester, Josiah (Northwestern University)
Pawełczak, Przemysław (TU Delft Embedded Systems)

Date

2020

Abstract

We present ENGAGE, the first battery-free, personal mobile gaming device powered by energy harvested from the gamer actions and sunlight. Our design implements a power failure resilient Nintendo Game Boy emulator that can run off-the-shelf classic Game Boy games like Tetris or Super Mario Land. This emulator is capable of intermittent operation by tracking memory usage, avoiding the need for always checkpointing all volatile memory, and decouples the game loop from user interface mechanics allowing for restoration after power failure. We build custom hardware that harvests energy from gamer button presses and sunlight, and leverages a mixed volatility memory architecture for efficient intermittent emulation of game binaries. Beyond a fun toy, our design represents the first battery-free system design for continuous user attention despite frequent power failures caused by intermittent energy harvesting. We tackle key challenges in intermittent computing for interaction including seamless displays and dynamic incentive-based gameplay for energy harvesting. This work provides a reference implementation and framework for a future of battery-free mobile gaming in a more sustainable Internet of Things.

Subject

Battery-free
Energy Harvesting
Intermittent Computing

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2f4da554-6f30-4f09-88a5-aca46bc0a4bd

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1145/3411839

ISSN

2474-9567

Source

ACM Proceedings on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 25 (2), 22-26

Part of collection

Institutional Repository