Department of Energy Argonne National Laboratory Office of Science NEWTON's Homepage NEWTON's Homepage
NEWTON, Ask A Scientist!
NEWTON Home Page NEWTON Teachers Visit Our Archives Ask A Question How To Ask A Question Question of the Week Our Expert Scientists Volunteer at NEWTON! Frequently Asked Questions Referencing NEWTON About NEWTON About Ask A Scientist Education At Argonne Smart Dust 
Name: Jose
Status: Student
Grade: 6-8
Location: SC
Country: United States
Date: Spring 2010
Question:
What are "smart dust"? Are "smart dust" nanotechnology? Is it bigger or smaller?


Replies:
From Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust

Smartdust is a hypothetical wireless network of tiny microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS), robots, or devices, that can detect (for example) light, temperature, or vibration.

A typical application scenario is scattering a hundred of these sensors around a building or around a hospital to monitor temperature or humidity, track patient movements, or inform of disasters, such as earthquakes. In the military, they can perform as a remote sensor chip to track enemy movements, detect poisonous gas or radioactivity.

SMART Dust is an application of nano technology.

This article shows a picture of a SMART Dust device and explains more about its construction and component parts:

http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/SmartDust/

See what else you can find by "Googling" "SMART DUST"

Sincere regards,
Mike Stewart

Hi,

Well, this is a new one on me! It seems that "Smart Dust" is a hypothetical concept that would use so-called Nanotechnology. Here is a Wikipedia article that gives an overview of it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartdust

Unfortunately, this article is rather technical, but considering the exrtemely technical (and theoretical) nature of this subject, simple explanations are not possible.

Regards,

Bob Wilson


Click here to return to the Engineering Archives

NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.

For assistance with NEWTON contact a System Operator (help@newton.dep.anl.gov), or at Argonne's Educational Programs

NEWTON AND ASK A SCIENTIST
Educational Programs
Building 360
9700 S. Cass Ave.
Argonne, Illinois
60439-4845, USA
Update: June 2012
Weclome To Newton

Argonne National Laboratory