AVRF: A Framework to Enable Distributed Computing Using Volunteered Mobile Resources

The goal of this project was to create a framework to enable Android mobile devices to act as volunteer workers for distributed computing tasks. The use of volunteered resources has enabled projects with high computational requirements to gain access to significant computational power using the idle time of personal computers volunteered by their owners, such as in SETI@home or similar. The Android Volunteered Resource Framework (AVRF) attempts to implement a similar system, albeit with Android powered devices as the volunteered workers. The framework downloads a set of components which define how to get, process, and return data, and runs them in the background of a more user interface intensive application with the goal of reducing or masking battery drain. Although the battery drain remains considerable it is possible that a user may find the drain acceptable anyway, or that running AVRF might be more useful when the phone is plugged in and charging