Bikrant Das Sharma, a senior in computer science at Rice, won first place in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Student E-Poster Competition in Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
His research poster was titled, “Power Savings in USB Hubs Through a Proactive Scheduling Strategy.” Universal serial bus hubs, which resemble power strips, provide additional ports to connect multiple devices to a host system.
“USB hubs are becoming increasingly common in computing setups,” Das Sharma said. “Our research looks at how to optimize power savings in hubs. Currently, hubs only save power when there is no active data exchange. We present an algorithm to increase power savings, propose implementing shallower power saving states, and suggest increasing scheduling intervals to improve power savings by tens of watts.”
Das Sharma’s co-author was Abdul Rahman Ismail, USB Implementers Forum chair and chief technology officer. The award comes with a $500 prize and was announced at the AAAS Annual Meeting held Feb. 15-17 in Denver.