Calculating MFLOPS

Calculating MFLOPS $($Million Floating Point Operations Per Second$)$ directly on an Arduino can be

challenging due to its limited computational capabilities and lack of native floating$-$point hardware

support. However, we can approximate MFLOPS by performing a large number of floating$-$point

operations and measuring the time it takes to execute them.

By dividing the total number of floating$-$point operations by the execution time $($in seconds$),$ we can

obtain an approximation of MFLOPS.

#define NUM$\_$OPERATIONS $1000//$ Number of floating$-$point operations to perform

#define NUM$\_$ITERATIONS $100//$ Number of iterations to measure execution time

void setup$()\{$

Serial.begin$(9600)$;

$\}$

void loop$()\{$

unsigned long startTime, endTime;

float result $=0$;

startTime $=$ micros$()$;

$//$ Perform floating$-$point operations

for $($int i $=0$; i $<$ NUM$\_$ITERATIONS; i$++)\{$

for $($int j $=0$; j $<$ NUM$\_$OPERATIONS; j$++)\{$

$//$ Perform a simple floating$-$point operation $($e$.$g$.,$ addition$)$

result $+=1\mathrm{.}123456*2\mathrm{.}0$;

$\}$

$\}$

endTime $=$ micros$()$;

$/$ Calculate execution time in seconds

float executionTimeSec $=($endTime $-$ startTime$)/1000000\mathrm{.}0$;

$//$ Calculate MFLOPS

float mflops $=($NUM$\_$OPERATIONS $*$ NUM$\_$ITERATIONS$)/($executionTimeSec $*1000000\mathrm{.}0)$;

$//$ Print results

Serial.print$("$Execution Time $($seconds$)$: $")$;

Serial.println$($executionTimeSec$,6)$;

Serial.print$("$MFLOPS: $")$;

Serial.println$($mflops$,2)$;

delay$(1000)$; $//$ Delay before next iteration

$\}$

Questions:

$1.$ What is the approximation of MFLOPS measured on your Arduino?

$2.$ The actual MFLOPS value obtained from this program may vary. List at least $2$ reasons why the

results may vary?