Smartdust

Last updated

Smartdust [1] is a system of many tiny microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) such as sensors, robots, or other devices, that can detect, for example, light, temperature, vibration, magnetism, or chemicals. They are usually operated on a computer network wirelessly and are distributed over some area to perform tasks, usually sensing through radio-frequency identification. Without an antenna of much greater size the range of tiny smart dust communication devices is measured in a few millimeters and they may be vulnerable to electromagnetic disablement and destruction by microwave exposure.

Contents

Design and engineering

The concepts for Smart Dust emerged from a workshop at RAND in 1992 and a series of DARPA ISAT studies in the mid-1990s due to the potential military applications of the technology. [2] The work was strongly influenced by work at UCLA and the University of Michigan during that period, as well as science fiction authors Stanislaw Lem (in novels The Invincible in 1964 and Peace on Earth in 1985), Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge. The first public presentation of the concept by that name was at the American Vacuum Society meeting in Anaheim in 1996.

A Smart Dust research proposal [3] was presented to DARPA written by Kristofer S. J. Pister, Joe Kahn, and Bernhard Boser, all from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997. The proposal, to build wireless sensor nodes with a volume of one cubic millimeter, was selected for funding in 1998. The project led to a working mote smaller than a grain of rice, [4] and larger "COTS Dust" devices kicked off the TinyOS effort at Berkeley.

The concept was later expanded upon by Kris Pister in 2001. [5] A recent review discusses various techniques to take smartdust in sensor networks beyond millimeter dimensions to the micrometre level. [6]

The Ultra-Fast Systems component of the Nanoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Glasgow is a founding member of a large international consortium which is developing a related concept: smart specks. [7]

Smart Dust entered the Gartner Hype Cycle on Emerging Technologies in 2003, [8] and returned in 2013, as the most speculative entrant. [9]

In 2022, a Nature paper written by Shyamnath Gollakota, Vikram Iyer, Hans Gaensbauer and Thomas Daniel, all from the University of Washington, presented tiny light-weight programmable battery-free wireless sensors that can be dispersed in the wind. [10] These devices were inspired by Dandelion seeds that can travel as far as a kilometer in dry, windy, and warm conditions.

Examples

Dust Networks started a project exploring the application of Smartdust, which included:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile device</span> Small, hand-held computing device

A mobile device, also referred to as a digital assistant, is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical keyboard. Many mobile devices can connect to the Internet and connect with other devices, such as car entertainment systems or headsets, via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular networks, or near-field communication. Integrated cameras, the ability to place and receive voice and video telephone calls, video games, and Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities are common. Power is typically provided by a lithium-ion battery. Mobile devices may run mobile operating systems that allow third-party applications to be installed and run.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental conditions such as temperature, sound, pollution levels, humidity and wind.

Energy harvesting (EH) – also known as power harvesting,energy scavenging, or ambient power – is the process by which energy is derived from external sources, then stored for use by small, wireless autonomous devices, like those used in wearable electronics, condition monitoring, and wireless sensor networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crossbow Technology</span> California-based electronics company

Crossbow Technology, Inc. was a California-based company that specialized in navigation products, such as gyroscopes and guidance, navigation, and control units.

TSMP, an acronym for Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol, was developed by Dust Networks as a communications protocol for self-organizing networks of wireless devices called motes. TSMP devices stay synchronized to each other and communicate in time-slots, similar to other TDM systems. Such deterministic communication allows the devices to stay extremely low power, as the radios only turn on for the periods of scheduled communication. The protocol is designed to operate very reliably in a noisy environment. It uses channel hopping to avoid interference -- the packets between TSMP devices get sent on different radio channels depending on time of transmission. TSMP distinguishes itself from other time-slotted mesh-based protocols, in that time-slot timing is maintained continuously and enables a network to duty-cycle on a transmitter-receiver pair-wise basis, as opposed to putting the entire network to sleep for extended periods of time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sensor node</span>

A sensor node, consists of an individual node from a sensor network that is capable of performing a desired action such as gathering, processing or communicating information with other connected nodes in a network.

Supranet is a term coined at the turn of the 21st century by information technology analysis firm Gartner to describe the fusion of the physical and the digital (virtual) worlds, a concept that embeds the "Internet of things" as one of its elements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kristofer Pister</span>

Kristofer S. J. Pister is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at University of California, Berkeley and the founder and CTO of Dust Networks. He is known for his academic work on Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), their simulation, his work on Smartdust, and his membership in the JASON Defense Advisory Group. He is the son of former Berkeley Dean of Engineering and former UC Chancellor Karl Pister.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike A. Horton</span>

Mike A. Horton is an American engineer and founder of a company producing sensor technology and sensor-based systems.

The nanomorphic cell is a conception of an atomic-level, integrated, self-sustaining microsystem with five main functions: internal energy supply, sensing, actuation, computation and communication. Atomic level integration provides the ultimate functionality per unit volume for microsystems. The nanomorphic cell abstraction allows one to analyze the fundamental limits of attainable performance for nanoscale systems in much the same way that the Turing Machine and the Carnot Engine support such limit studies for information processing and heat engines respectively.

Dust Networks, Inc. is an American company specializing in the design and manufacture of wireless sensor networks for industrial applications including process monitoring, condition monitoring, asset management, Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) monitoring and power management. They were acquired by Linear Technology, Inc in December 2011, which in turn was acquired by Analog Devices, Inc in 2017. The Dust Networks product team operates in the IoT Networking Platforms group of Analog Devices.

IEEE 1451 is a set of smart transducer interface standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Instrumentation and Measurement Society's Sensor Technology Technical Committee describing a set of open, common, network-independent communication interfaces for connecting transducers to microprocessors, instrumentation systems, and control/field networks. One of the key elements of these standards is the definition of Transducer electronic data sheets (TEDS) for each transducer. The TEDS is a memory device attached to the transducer, which stores transducer identification, calibration, correction data, and manufacturer-related information. The goal of the IEEE 1451 family of standards is to allow the access of transducer data through a common set of interfaces whether the transducers are connected to systems or networks via a wired or wireless means.

David Ethan Culler is a computer scientist and former chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a principal investigator in the Software Defined Buildings (SDB) project at the EECS Department at Berkeley and the faculty director of the i4Energy Center. His research addresses networks of small, embedded wireless devices, planetary-scale internet services, parallel computer architecture, parallel programming languages, and high performance communication. This includes TinyOS, Berkeley Motes, PlanetLab, Networks of Workstations (NOW), Internet services, Active Message, Split-C, and the Threaded Abstract Machine (TAM).

OSIAN, or Open Source IPv6 Automation Network, is a free and open-source implementation of IPv6 networking for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). OSIAN extends TinyOS, which started as a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley in co-operation with Intel Research and Crossbow Technology, and has since grown to be an international consortium, the TinyOS Alliance. OSIAN brings direct Internet-connectivity to smartdust technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cadi Scientific</span>

Cadi Scientific is a Singapore-based healthcare technology company that develops and markets wireless sensing and tracking devices base on active Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology for healthcare institutions. Cadi Scientific is known in the Singapore Healthcare market for its Cadi SmartSense System that is designed for tracking patients' real-time locations for automating workflow as well as monitoring patients' temperatures automatically to reduce nurses' workload.

Google Contact Lens was a smart contact lens project announced by Google on 16 January 2014. The project aimed to assist people with diabetes by constantly measuring the glucose levels in their tears. The project was being carried out by Verily and as of 2014 was being tested using prototypes. On November 16, 2018, Verily announced it had discontinued the project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenWSN</span>

OpenWSN is a project created at the University of California Berkeley and extended at the INRIA and at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) which aims to build an open standard-based and open source implementation of a complete constrained network protocol stack for wireless sensor networks and Internet of Things. The root of OpenWSN is a deterministic MAC layer implementing the IEEE 802.15.4e TSCH based on the concept of Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH). Above the MAC layer, the Low Power Lossy Network stack is based on IETF standards including the IETF 6TiSCH management and adaptation layer. The stack is complemented by an implementation of 6LoWPAN, RPL in non-storing mode, UDP and CoAP, enabling access to devices running the stack from the native IPv6 through open standards.

Time Slotted Channel Hopping or Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) is a channel access method for shared-medium networks.

Neural dust is a hypothetical class of nanometer-sized devices operated as wirelessly powered nerve sensors; it is a type of brain–computer interface. The sensors may be used to study, monitor, or control the nerves and muscles and to remotely monitor neural activity. In practice, a medical treatment could introduce thousands of neural dust devices into human brains. The term is derived from "smart dust", as the sensors used as neural dust may also be defined by this concept.

References

  1. ↑ More than Meets the eye. PC Mag. Mar 12, 2002. Page 30.
  2. ↑ Rosenthal, Marshal M. "Gamebits: Digital Tricks". Games . Issue 160 (Vol 24, #3). Pg.6. May 2000.
  3. ↑ "Smart Dust: BAA97-43 Proposal Abstract, POC: Kristofer S.J. Pister" (PDF). berkeley.edu. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  4. ↑ "An autonomous 16 mm/sup 3/ solar-powered node for distributed wireless sensor networks - IEEE Conference Publication". doi:10.1109/ICSENS.2002.1037346. S2CID   17152548.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ↑ "CiteSeerX". psu.edu. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  6. ↑ Makin, Simon (August 8, 2016). ""Neural Dust" Could Enable a Fitbit for the Nervous System". Scientific American. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  7. ↑ "Smart Dust for Space Exploration". Archived from the original on 2017-06-30. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
  8. ↑ "2003 Gartner Hype Cycle on emerging technologies". Gartner. Retrieved 20 August 2016.
  9. ↑ "2013 Gartner Hype Cycle on emerging technologies". Gartner. Archived from the original on August 19, 2013. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  10. ↑ Iyer, Vikram; Gaensbauer, Hans; Daniel, Thomas L.; Gollakota, Shyamnath (2022-03-17). "Wind dispersal of battery-free wireless devices". Nature. 603 (7901): 427–433. Bibcode:2022Natur.603..427I. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04363-9. ISSN   0028-0836. PMID   35296847. S2CID   247499662.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.