Re: [PATCH 1/2] thermal: power allocator: change the 'k_i' coefficient estimation

[Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@linaro.org>]

On 13/10/2020 12:59, Lukasz Luba wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> On 10/13/20 11:21 AM, Daniel Lezcano wrote:
>>
>> Hi Lukasz,
>>
>> On 02/10/2020 14:24, Lukasz Luba wrote:
>>> Intelligent Power Allocation (IPA) is built around the PID controller
>>> concept. The initialization code tries to setup the environment based on
>>> the information available in DT or estimate the value based on minimum
>>> power reported by each of the cooling device. The estimation will
>>> have an
>>> impact on the PID controller behaviour via the related 'k_po', 'k_pu',
>>> 'k_i' coefficients and also on the power budget calculation.
>>>
>>> This change prevents the situation when 'k_i' is relatively big compared
>>> to 'k_po' and 'k_pu' values. This might happen when the estimation for
>>> 'sustainable_power' returned small value, thus 'k_po' and 'k_pu' are
>>> small.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Lukasz Luba <lukasz.luba@arm.com>
>>> ---
>>>   drivers/thermal/gov_power_allocator.c | 8 ++++++--
>>>   1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/drivers/thermal/gov_power_allocator.c
>>> b/drivers/thermal/gov_power_allocator.c
>>> index 5cb518d8f156..f69fafe486a5 100644
>>> --- a/drivers/thermal/gov_power_allocator.c
>>> +++ b/drivers/thermal/gov_power_allocator.c
>>> @@ -131,6 +131,7 @@ static void estimate_pid_constants(struct
>>> thermal_zone_device *tz,
>>>       int ret;
>>>       int switch_on_temp;
>>>       u32 temperature_threshold;
>>> +    s32 k_i;
>>>         ret = tz->ops->get_trip_temp(tz, trip_switch_on,
>>> &switch_on_temp);
>>>       if (ret)
>>> @@ -156,8 +157,11 @@ static void estimate_pid_constants(struct
>>> thermal_zone_device *tz,
>>>           tz->tzp->k_pu = int_to_frac(2 * sustainable_power) /
>>>               temperature_threshold;
>>>   -    if (!tz->tzp->k_i || force)
>>> -        tz->tzp->k_i = int_to_frac(10) / 1000;
>>> +    if (!tz->tzp->k_i || force) {
>>> +        k_i = tz->tzp->k_pu / 10;
>>> +        tz->tzp->k_i = k_i > 0 ? k_i : 1;
>>> +    }
>>
>> I do not understand the rational behind this change.
> 
> This is the unfortunate impact of the EM abstract scale of power values.
> IPA didn't have to deal with it, because we always had milli-Watts.
> Because the EM allows the bogoWatts and some vendors already have
> them I have to re-evaluate the IPA.
> 
>>
>> Do you have some values to share describing what would be the impact of
>> this change?
> 
> Yes, here is an example:
> EM has 3 devices with abstract scale power values, where minimum power
> is 25 and max is 200. The minimum power is used by
> estimate_sustainable_power()
> as a sum of all devices' min power. Sustainable power is going to be
> estimated to 75.
> 
> Then in the code we have 'temperature_threshold' which is in
> milli-Celcius, thus 15degC is 15000.
> 
> We estimate 'k_po' according to:
> int_to_frac(sustainable_power) / temperature_threshold;
> 
> which is:
> (75 << 10) / 15000 = ~75000 / 15000 = 5 <-- 'k_po'
> 
> then k_pu:
> ((2*75) << 10) / 15000 = ~150000 / 15000 = 10
> 
> Then the old 'k_i' is just hard-coded 10, which is
> the same order of magnitude to what is in 'k_pu'.
> It should be 1 order of magnitude smaller than 'k_pu'.
> 
> I did some experiments and the bigger 'k_i' slows down a lot
> the rising temp. That's why this change.
> 
> It was OK to have k_i=10 when we were in milliWatts world,
> when the min power value was bigger, thus 'k_pu' was also bigger
> than our hard-coded 'k_i'.
> 
>>
>> Depending on the thermal behavior of a board, these coefficients could
>> be very different, no ?
>>
> 
> Yes, I strongly believe that vendor engineers will make experiments with
> these values and not go with default. Then they will store the k_pu,
> k_po, k_i via sysfs interface, with also sustainable_power.

IMHO it is the opposite. For what I've seen, the IPA is not used or the
k_* are misunderstood, thus not changed. The PID regulation loop
technique is not quite used and known by everyone.

> But I have to also fix the hard-coded k_i in the estimation. As
> described above, when we have small power values from abstract scale,
> the k_i stays too big.

May be it is preferable to adjust the k_* dynamically given the
undershot and overshot results? And then add a set of less opaque
parameters for the user, like the time or watts, no?




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