A Sprinkling of Smart Dust
Thousands of tiny computers that scavenge power from their surroundings could one day be used to monitor your world. Such tiny computers, nicknamed smart dust; would work much like their larger cousins, says Prabal Dutta at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. They will have tiny CPUs that run programs on a skeleton operating system and be able to access equally small banks of RAM and flash memory. The plan is for such sensor-packed machines to be embedded in buildings and objects in their hundreds or even thousands, providing constant updates on the world around us.
But how do you charge something so small? "The vision of blanketing the world with smart sensors is very compelling," says Joshua Smith, head of the Sensor Systems Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle. "But a lot of sensor networks researchers found themselves surrounded by mountains of depleted batteries and dead sensor nodes." So, like microscopic Robinson Crusoes, the motes will live off the power they can scavenge from their surroundings. A mote near a light source might use a tiny solar panel, while a mote running somewhere with greater temperature extremes can be built to tap into that, by converting the heat energy that flows between hot and cold into electricity.
The Michigan team says Micro Motes could be used to monitor every tiny movement of large structures like bridges or skyscrapers. And motes in a smart house could report back on lighting, temperature, carbon monoxide levels and occupancy. With motes embedded in all of your belongings it might be possible to run a Google search in the physical world. For example, asking Google "where are my keys?" would give you the right answer if they have been fitted with a mote.
Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829146.400-smart-dust-computers-are-no-bigger-than-a-snowflake.html
Related story on Next generation Mars Rover: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/why-next-gen-rovers-could-be-smaller-grain-sand
#dust #science #scienceeveryday #smartdust #robot #robotics #swarm #computers #devices
Thousands of tiny computers that scavenge power from their surroundings could one day be used to monitor your world. Such tiny computers, nicknamed smart dust; would work much like their larger cousins, says Prabal Dutta at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. They will have tiny CPUs that run programs on a skeleton operating system and be able to access equally small banks of RAM and flash memory. The plan is for such sensor-packed machines to be embedded in buildings and objects in their hundreds or even thousands, providing constant updates on the world around us.
But how do you charge something so small? "The vision of blanketing the world with smart sensors is very compelling," says Joshua Smith, head of the Sensor Systems Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle. "But a lot of sensor networks researchers found themselves surrounded by mountains of depleted batteries and dead sensor nodes." So, like microscopic Robinson Crusoes, the motes will live off the power they can scavenge from their surroundings. A mote near a light source might use a tiny solar panel, while a mote running somewhere with greater temperature extremes can be built to tap into that, by converting the heat energy that flows between hot and cold into electricity.
The Michigan team says Micro Motes could be used to monitor every tiny movement of large structures like bridges or skyscrapers. And motes in a smart house could report back on lighting, temperature, carbon monoxide levels and occupancy. With motes embedded in all of your belongings it might be possible to run a Google search in the physical world. For example, asking Google "where are my keys?" would give you the right answer if they have been fitted with a mote.
Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829146.400-smart-dust-computers-are-no-bigger-than-a-snowflake.html
Related story on Next generation Mars Rover: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/why-next-gen-rovers-could-be-smaller-grain-sand
#dust #science #scienceeveryday #smartdust #robot #robotics #swarm #computers #devices
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+Kam-Yung Soh OK, look at it this way, the PC boards of say 1980 were huge beasts, today, it has shrunk. A Sound card for example, used to be on a ISA board, that was almost the width of the entire computer. Today how ever, the same sound card is reduced to a single chip, with even added channels, effectors etc. What if the particles is actually on a single silicon chip.
So far, these sand motes look like they will be designed for a single purpose, like taking temperature or GPS locator (in case of car keys). That makes that the billions of extra things on a regular processor die are not needed. The sand will need only an input and output, if they can make it use any kind of metal they are touching to function as it's antenna, like some common car radio, then the problem is solved.Apr 30, 2013
Exactly my thoughts +Gerhard Groenewald-Loots. We might have a whole group of people who carry a continual EMP emitting device. Or secret meetings are preceded by sealing the doors and letting off an EMP.
Oh, the joys this could bring. A sci-fi writer could have a field day with this, don't you think +Lacerant Plainer ;-)Apr 30, 2013
+Adam Johnson, you bet :) If you read The Orange Rock, it would sound familiar !Apr 30, 2013- +Adam Johnson As a kind of a sci-fi writer myself, A billion thoughts about just these dust strikes my mind, like a super computer who takes over and control it, using it to kill. Another Idea, is that someone find a way to make it go into a body of a public political figure and use it like mind control.
The possibilities are endless...Apr 30, 2013 
intelligent wireless data clouds shiver at that thoughtApr 30, 2013
Sounds a little like the clouds from Crichton's 'Prey'. Best SciFi ever! God we miss you Mike!Apr 30, 2013
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