Smart dust Basics | components, applications, advantages, disadvantages
This page covers smart dust basics with features. It mentions components used in smart dust construction including how it works. It mentions applications, advantages and disadvantages of smart dust technology.
What is Smart dust | Features of Smart dust technology
The smart dust is a device which consists of sensing part, computing part, wireless part and power supply. It is few millimeters in size and very low cost device. It is used to monitor real world phenomenon.
The smart dust technology consists of tiny size wireless sensors. This sensors are also known as "motes". These devices communicate with each other as well as collect the data as desired.
The device has size of grain of sand. This device consists of sensors, bi-directional wireless functionality, computational ability and power supply. The technology uses series of circuit and MEMS designs to incorporate functionalities into a silicon. MEMS stands for Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System.
Smart dust Components | How smart dust device works
The smart dust device contains following components:
• sensors
• Active optical transmission using laser diode and beam-steering
• Passive optical transmission using corner cube retro-reflector
• Optical receiver using photodetector
• Analog I/O, Signal processing (DSP or micro-controller) and control circuitry
• Power source (Either using solar cells or thick film batteries)
As shown in the figure-2, Smart dust uses two types of transmission viz. active and passive. The active transmission uses laser diode and steerable mirrors for device to device communication. The passive transmission uses corner cube retro reflector for transmission to BSs (Base Stations).
• The smart dust device is run using microcontroller unit.
It helps in determining tasks which need to be carried out by the mote.
It controls the power to different components of the entire system so that
power can be conserved.
• Microcontroller gets signal from the sensor.
It processes the data according to the sensor type.
There are different types of sensors which senses light, temperature, vibration, pressure or
acceleration etc. After the processing, it stores the result into the memory.
• The device uses optical receiver so that it will have information
about some device willing to communicate to it.
This can be new programs or messages from other motes (i.e. smart dust device).
• Based on the received message, micro-controller will use corner cube reflector/laser device
to transmit sensor data or message either to Base Station or another mote.
Smart dust Applications
Following are the smart dust applications:
• Soldier wearable shooter locatization system
• It is used in bio-logical domain to monitor movements and
internal processes of the insects.
• It is used in places where wired sensors are not useful such as
rotating machines, wind tunnels etc.
Smart dust Advantages
Following are the smart dust advantages:
• Smaller size as of dust particles
• Light in weight
• Lower cost
• It helps in reducing time for the farmers due to better
fertilization management
• It helps in increase in the productivity.
Smart dust Disadvantages
Following are the smart dust disadvantages:
• The privacy is the major concern which needs to be handle properly.
• It has adverse environmental problems in certain applications.
• Higher cost due to availability of high cost sensors used in the smart dust design.
WSN-Wireless Sensor Network and Ad Hoc Network related links
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Difference between OFDM and OFDMA
Difference between CDMA and GSM
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Sensors and Transducers Related Links
Refer following links to know more on types of sensors and transducers:
Article on Sensors and Transducers>>
Proximity Sensor
Occupancy Sensor vs Motion Sensor
LVDT and RVDT sensor
Position, displacement and level sensor
force sensor and strain sensor
temperature sensor
pressure sensor
Humidity sensor
MEMS sensor
Touch sensor
Haptic sensor
Wireless sensor