08-16-2017, 09:14 PM
Smartdust is a hypothetical wireless network of tiny microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS), robots, or devices, that can detect (for example) light, temperature, or vibration.
The smartdust concept was introduced by Kristofer S. J. Pister (University of California) in 2001, though the same ideas existed in science fiction before then (The Invincible, 1964). A recent review discusses various techniques to take smartdust in sensor networks beyond millimeter dimensions to the micrometre level.
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 .
Some attribute the concepts behind smart dust to a project at PARC called Smart Matter.
Smartdust devices will be based on sub-voltage and deep-sub-voltage nanoelectronics and include the micro power sources with all solid state impulse supercapacitors (nanoionic supercapacitors).
The recent development of nanoradios may be employed in the implementation of smartdust as a usable technology.