Collaborative Research: DESC: Type 2: Delphi: Life-time aware design frameworks for sustainable edge devices

家庭、工厂和农场中的可穿戴手表、相机、手机和传感器等边缘设备已成为我们与技术日常互动的基础，也是健康和制造业等众多关键部门的重要数据来源。不幸的是，这些设备数量的指数级增长是以巨大的环境成本为代价的。仅用户和边缘设备就占了信息和通信技术造成的全球4%碳排放量的三分之一以上。在未来几十年，随着边缘设备的数量激增至数万亿，这种生态影响预计会恶化。该项目开发了Delphi，这是一个端到端框架，在设计边缘设备时，在考虑用户体验、性能和效率的同时，优先考虑环境影响。德尔福将通过在整个生命周期内设计具有环保意识的边缘设备，实现可持续的技术发展。通过Delphi，软件和硬件设计师将能够更好地减少计算对环境的潜在危害，同时仍然为用户和社会提供有价值的计算服务。该项目将为可使用数十年的设备奠定基础，潜在地减少电子垃圾和旨在最大限度地减少环境足迹的瞬态、短寿命设备。该项目将把可持续发展纳入大学课程，提供更广泛的在线教育模块，并举办可持续发展黑客马拉松。Delphi工具本身将是开源的、开放的硬件，并附带开放的数据集——所有这些都是为了促进进一步的研究和实现碳意识设计，以确保计算的更可持续的未来。该项目旨在将碳和可持续性作为未来边缘计算设备的一阶设计参数，这些设备包括从微小的能量收集物联网（IoT）设备到高性能消费电子产品。Delphi是一套碳意识设计工具，它考虑了计算设备制造过程中的能源、电子垃圾和用水等因素，以及机器学习和软件生命周期的运行碳因素。该框架涵盖传感器、计算、通信和电源，可容纳各种边缘设备，并包括机器学习工作流设计及其操作和隐含碳影响的概率分析。该项目的研究有三个主要任务。首先，通过最先进的学术洁净室，康奈尔纳米设施（CNF）收集首个同类数据集，量化设备对环境的影响，并为突出的设备组件（如处理器、内存和存储、能量收集模块）提供建筑碳模型。这项任务将数据整合到新的基础碳模型中，指导所有的研究任务。第二，以可持续性为一级设计目标的系统设计工具，以及性能和服务质量。该任务为帕累托前沿的设备开发电子可持续性记录，以维护系统特定的可持续性分类账，从而在设备的整个使用寿命期间跟踪环境遥测。最后，第三个任务是开发运行时可持续性管理器，包括循环中的人员，以减少设备过时。该软件将根据用户选择、静态寿命要求和环境因素优雅地降低和升级系统性能。综合框架的有效性通过短暂的“Ephemeral设备”和终身伴侣健康和健康可穿戴设备（绰号“Infinite Bit”）来证明。随着项目的成熟，这两种设备原型提供了一种持续验证的机制。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Edge devices like wearable watches and cameras, phones, and sensors in homes, factories, and farms, have become the foundation of our daily interactions with technology and the source of significant data for numerous critical sectors like health and manufacturing. Unfortunately, the exponential growth in sheer numbers of these devices comes at a significant environmental cost. User and edge devices alone account for over one-third of the 4% of global carbon emissions attributed to information and communication technologies. This ecological impact is projected to worsen as the number of edge devices surges into the trillions over the next few decades. This project develops Delphi, an end-to-end framework that prioritizes environmental impact while considering user experience, performance, and efficiency when designing edge devices. Delphi will enable sustainable technological growth by allowing for the design of environmentally conscious edge devices throughout their lifecycle. Via Delphi, software and hardware designers will be better able to reduce the potential environmental harms of computing while still offering valuable computational services for users and society. The project will lay the foundations for devices that can last for decades, potentially reducing e-waste and transient, short-lived devices designed to minimize environmental footprint. The project will integrate sustainability into college courses, provide broader online educational modules, and host a sustainability hackathon. Delphi tools themselves will be open-source, open hardware, and come with open datasets– all to facilitate further research and enable carbon-aware design to ensure a more sustainable future for computing. This project seeks to make carbon and sustainability a first-order design parameter for future edge computing devices that range from tiny, energy-harvesting Internet of Things (IoT) devices to higher-performance consumer electronics. Delphi is a suite of carbon-aware design tools that consider factors like energy, e-waste, and water usage from the manufacturing of computational devices, as well as operation carbon factors of machine learning and software lifecycles. The framework covers sensors, computing, communication, and power, accommodating various edge devices, and includes probabilistic analysis of machine learning workflows design and their operational and embodied carbon impact. The project's research has three major tasks. First, quantifying device environmental impact by collecting a first-of-its-kind dataset via a state-of-the-art academic clean room, the Cornell Nanoscale Facility (CNF), with architectural carbon models for salient device components (e.g., processor, memory and storage, energy harvesting modules). This task integrates data into new foundational carbon models, guiding all research tasks. Second, tools for the design of systems with sustainability as a first-order design target, alongside performance and quality of service. The task develops Electronic Sustainability Records for devices on the Pareto-frontier to maintain system-specific sustainability ledgers to track environmental telemetry across the operational lifetime of devices. Finally, the third task develops runtime sustainability managers, including humans in the loop, to reduce device obsolescence. The software will gracefully degrade and upgrade system performance based on user choices, static lifetime requirements, and environmental factors. The comprehensive framework's effectiveness is demonstrated through short-lived "Ephemeral devices" and lifelong companion health and wellness wearable devices, nicknamed the "Infinite Bit." These two device archetypes provide a mechanism for continuous validation as the project matures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.