Smartdust is a hypothetical network of tiny wireless microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors, robots, or devices, installed with wireless communications, that can detect anything from light and temperature, to vibrations, etc. A mite next to a gear set produced using MEMS. Courtesy Sandia National Laboratories, SUMMiTTM Technologies, www. ...

Design and engineering

The devices, or motes, are intended to be the size of a grain of sand, or even a dust particle. Each device would contain sensors, computing circuits, bidirectional wireless communications technology and a power supply. Motes would gather data, run computations and communicate using two-way-band radio with other motes at distances approaching 1,000 feet (300 metres). Smartdust is a network of tiny wireless microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS), robots, or devices, installed with wireless communications, that can detect anything from light and temperature, to vibrations, etc. ... Patterns in the sand Sand is a granular material made up of fine rock particles. ... After just three years of use dust has blocked this laptop heat sink, making the computer unusable Dust is a general name for minute solid particles with diameters less than 500 micrometers (otherwise, see sand or granulates) and, more generally, for finely divided matter. ...

When clustered together, they would automatically create highly flexible, low-power networks with applications ranging from climate control systems to entertainment devices that interact with information appliances. Information appliance (IA) refers to any device that can process information, signals, graphics, animation, video and audio; and can exchange such information with another IA device. ...

The smartdust concept was introduced by Kristofer Pister (University of California) in 2001 ^[1], though similar ideas existed in science fiction before then. A recent review ^[2] discusses various techniques to take smartdust in sensor networks beyond millimeter dimensions to the micrometre level. The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. ... A sensor network is a computer network of many, spatially distributed devices using sensors to monitor conditions at different locations, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants. ... A micrometre (American spelling: micrometer, symbol µm) is an SI unit of length equal to one millionth of a metre, or about a tenth of the size of a droplet of mist or fog. ...

Applications

A typical application scenario is scattering a hundred of these sensors around a building or around a hospital to monitor temperature or humidity, track patient movements, or inform of disasters, such as earthquakes. In the military, they can perform as a remote sensor chip to track enemy movements, detect poisonous gas or radioactivity. The ease and low cost of such applications have raised privacy concerns, primarily in science fiction stories. Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

Beyond such demonstrations lies an emerging world of very large networks that combine motes and portable gear with larger technologies to improve the depth, duration and range of monitoring. The $200 million EarthScope project of the science foundation is erecting 3,000 stations that are to track faint tremors, measure crustal deformation and make three-dimensional maps of the earth's interior from crust to core. Some 2,000 more instruments are to be mobile — wireless and sun- or wind-powered — and 400 devices are to move east in a wave from California across the nation over the course of a decade. The goal is to uncover the secrets of how the continent formed and evolved, revolutionizing the study of volcanoes, fault systems, mineral deposits and earthquakes. Begun in 2003, EarthScope is to be completed by 2008 and run until 2023. The EarthScope project is an undertaking funded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the USGS and NASA to characterize the geology of North America. ...

—William J. Broad, A Web of Sensors, Taking Earth's Pulse (New York Times) The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

Consider also that Smart Dust was derived from an earlier concept called Smart Matter, that was conceived at the Palo Alto Research Center.

See also

• Nanotechnology
• TinyOS
• Localizer
• Mesh networking
• Wireless Sensor Network
• Utility fog

Molecular gears from a NASA computer simulation. ... TinyOS is an open source component-based operating system and platform targeting wireless sensor networks. ... A localizer is one component of a ILS or Instrument Landing System. ... Mesh networking is a way to route data, voice and instructions between nodes. ... A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a mesh network of small sensor nodes communicating among themselves using RF communication, and deployed in large scale (from tens to thousands) to sense the physical world. ... Utility fog is a collection of tiny robots, envisioned by Dr. John Storrs Hall while he was thinking about a nanotechnological replacement for car seatbelts. ...

External links and references

• ↑  Smart Dust: Communicating with a Cubic-Millimeter Brett Warneke, Matt Last, Brian Liebowitz, and Kristofer S.J. Pister, Computer, vol. 34, pp. 44-51, 2001
• ↑  Smart dust: nanostructured devices in a grain of sand, Michael J. Sailor and Jamie R. Link, Chemical Communications, vol. 11, p. 1375, 2005
• How stuff works: motes
• Open source mote designs and TinyOS operating system from UC Berkeley
• UC Berkeley Smart Dust Project
• Sailor research group at UCSD
• Web of Sensors "In the wilds of the San Jacinto Mountains, along a steep canyon, scientists are turning 30 acres [121,000 m²] of pines and hardwoods in California into a futuristic vision of environmental study. They are linking up more than 100 tiny sensors, robots, cameras and computers, which are beginning to paint an unusually detailed portrait of this lush world, home to more than 30 rare and endangered species. Much of the instrumentation is wireless. Devices the size of a deck of cards — known as motes, after dust motes..."
• Dust Networks — An industrial mesh network using 1-inch "motes" and borrowing other terminology from the smartdust concept
• Newtrax Networks — Decentralized ad hoc sensor networks