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Smart Dust: Miniature Devices that can Monitor the Environment
Smart Dust refers to sub-millimeter-scale devices that are able to be suspended in an environment and sense and wirelessly communicate. These miniscule devices can sense many different kinds of things, like light, temperature, vibrations, pressure, acceleration, humidity, sound, stress, presence of toxins, and more. Smart Dust devices are sometimes referred to as MOTEs or MEMS (micro-electromechanical sensors).
David Blaauw, a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of Michigan, said that “we should be arriving very soon at millimeter-scale computing systems. There is actually a lot of information out there that we cannot access… because we’re not small enough. With millimeter-scale systems, we can actually illuminate knowledge into regions of our environment that we just don’t have access to today.” Smart Dust devices are small enough to be put anywhere.
Some practical applications of smart dust include:
- Agriculture – monitoring weather conditions and crop growth
- Equipment – monitoring equipment in service and evaluate the need for maintenance
- Security – surveillance and security monitoring
- Inventory control – tracking of the movement of parcels and packages
- Healthcare – monitoring of human body functioning and medical diagnostics
Kris Pister, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said that “smart dust will benefit people and the environment. More information is better information. Having more sensors improves the efficiency of a system and reduces the demand and reduces waste. So all of that is just straight goodness.”
