SMART DUST 2011

Chapter 1:
INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is Smart Dust?

Smart dust is a tiny dust size device with extra-ordinary capabilities. These
devices are also called as “motes”. Smart dust combines sensing, computing, wireless
communication capabilities and autonomous power supply within volume of only few
millimeters and that too at low cost. These devices are proposed to be so small and light
in weight that they can remain suspended in the environment like an ordinary dust
particle. These properties of Smart Dust will render it useful in monitoring real world
phenomenon without disturbing the original process to an observable extends. Presently
the achievable size of Smart Dust is about 5mm cube, but we hope that it will eventually
be as small as a speck of dust. Individual sensors of smart dust are often referred to as
motes because of their small size. These devices are also known as MEMS, which stands
for micro electro-mechanical sensors.

Fig.1: Snapshot of Smart Dust (“motes”).

These are ultra miniature devices with the properties of sensors, with the own
processor and with the capability to transmit and receive data either in the UHF band or
with the help of the laser beam. These devices were called “smart dust” (SMART – Self-
Monitoring, Analysis, Reporting Technology, dust – due to extremely small volume,
some cubic millimeters.). These units may serve as the nodes of the cellular spread net
system, which may cover rather large areas and gather data of different types: ecological,
temperature, humidity, intrusion, audio and video. The special operation system was

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 1

SMART DUST 2011

developed for these devices (TinyOS) with the possibility to work on less than 8
kilobytes memory. Chemical or solar cells provide the power consumption. In some cases
power, radiated from the external source is used, as in radio frequency identification
devices. The rapid progress in the wireless sensor networks promises new important
applications and demands to the traditional telecommunication problems.

1.2 History

In the early stages of the project, the team gained experience by building
relatively large motes using components available “of theshelf”. One such mote, named
“RF Mote,” has sensors for “temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, light intensity,
tilt and vibration, and magnetic field” and it is capable of communicating distances of
about 60 feet using radio frequency (RF) communication. If the mote operated
continuously, its battery would last up to one week.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been funding
Smart Dust research heavily since the late 1990s, seeing virtually limitless applications in
the sphere of modern warfare. So far the research has been promising, with prototype
smart dust sensors as small as 5mm. But further scaling down needs advance
technological changes. Costs have been dropping rapidly with technological innovations,
bringing individual motes down to as little as $50 each, with hopes of dropping below $1
per mote in the near future.

In spite of the design challenges in the size of the mote, power supply,
communication and computation, researchers continue to make progress towards their
main goal of reducing the size of the mote to 1-millimeter cube. Hopefully in the next
couple of years the objectives of the Smart Dust project will be realized, and
commercialization and subsequent use will be widespread throughout society. In the
military for example it could offer an alternative and cheaper way to monitor enemies by
reducing cost, risk to human life and performance. In the future there will be billions of

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 2

SMART DUST 2011

motes embedded in everything that will be able to sense, compute and communicate with
each other using ultra low power.

Chapter 2:

COMPONENTS
2.1 Structure

A smart dust particle is often called motes (Fig. 2). One single mote has a Micro
Electro Mechanical System (MEMS), a semiconductor laser diode, MEMS beam steering
mirror for active optical transmission, a MEMS corner cube retro-reflector for passive
optical transmission, an optical receiver, a signal processing and control circuitry, and a
power source based on thick-film batteries and solar cells.

Fig.2: Showing size of Smart Dust

A major challenge is to incorporate all these functions while maintaining very low
power consumption and optimizing the operating life of the mote. The structure of a
single moat is shown in Figure 3. Smart dust motes consist of a passive optical
transmitter with a micro fabricated corner- Cube Retro-reflector (CCR). This CCR
contains three mutually perpendicular mirror fabricated of gold- coated poly-silicon (fig.
4). The CCR reflects any ray of light within a certain range of angles centered about the
cube diagonal back to the source.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 3

SMART DUST 2011

The power system consists of a thick-film battery or a solar cell, or both with a
charge-integrating capacitor (power capacitor). The thick film battery of sol or gel V2O3
provides as a backup in darkness, while solar cells generate energy from sunlight.
Depending on its objective, the design integrates various sensors, including light,
temperature, vibration, magnetic field, acoustic, and wind shear, onto the mote. Active
transmitters make possible peer-to-peer communication between dust motes, provided
there exists a line-of-sight path between them.

Fig.3: Structural Components of a Smart Dust Mote

2.2 Corner Cube Retro-Reflector (CCR)

CCR comprises three mutually perpendicular mirrors of gold-coated poly-silicon.

The CCR has the property that any incident ray of light is reflected back to the source
(provided that it is incident within a certain range of angles centered about the cube’s
body diagonal). If one of the mirrors is misaligned, this retro-reflection property is
spoiled. The micro-fabricated CCR includes an electrostatic actuator that can deflect one
of the mirrors at kilohertz rates. It has been demonstrated that a CCR illuminated by an
external light source can transmit back a modulated signal at kilobits per second. Since
the dust mote itself does not emit light, the passive transmitter consumes little power.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 4

SMART DUST 2011

Using a micro-fabricated CCR, we can achieve data transmission at a bit rate up to 1

kilobit per second, and over a range up to 150 meters, using a 5milliwatt illuminating
laser.

Fig.4: Snapshot of CCR

One should note that CCR-based passive optical links require an uninterrupted
line-of-sight path. Moreover, a CCR-based passive transmitter is inherently directional; a
CCR can transmit to the BTS only when the CCR body diagonal happens to point
directly toward the BTS, within a few tens of degrees.

A passive transmitter can be made more omni-directional by employing several

CCRs oriented in different directions, at the expense of increased dust mote size. If a dust
mote employs only one or a few CCRs, the lack of omni-directional transmission has
important consequence on feasible network routing strategies.

Fig.5: Free Spaces Optical Network

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 5

SMART DUST 2011

Figure 5 illustrates a free-space optical network utilizing the CCR-based passive

uplink. The BTS contains a laser whose beam illuminates an area containing dust motes.
This beam can be modulated with downlink data, including commands to wake up and
query the dust motes. When the illuminating beam is not modulated, the dust motes can
use their CCRs to transmit uplink data back to the base station. A high frame-rate CCD
video camera at the BTS sees these CCR signals as lights blinking on and off. It decodes
these blinking images to yield the uplink data. This uplink scheme achieves several
kilobits per second over hundreds of meters in full sunlight. At night, in clear, still air, the
range should extend to several kilometers.

Because the camera uses an imaging process to separate the simultaneous

transmissions from dust motes at different locations, we say that it uses space-division
multiplexing. The ability for a video camera to resolve these transmissions is a
consequence of the short wavelength of visible or near-infrared light. This does not
require any coordination among the dust motes, and thus, it does not complicate their
design.

2.3 Challenges

The hardware design has to face many challenges due to the small size of the
Smart Dust. First of all, it is hardly possible to fit current radio communication
technology into Smart Dust both size wise and energy wise. The present radio
communication has large antennas and thus requires larger space. The energy
requirements are also high. So, a more size and power efficient passive laser based
communication schemes have to be adopted. But it also has its share of disadvantages.
Another factor of concern is the energy consumption by the Smart Dust. With
devices so small, batteries present a massive addition of weight. It is therefore important
to use absolutely minimal amounts of energy in communicating the data they collect to
the central hubs, where humans can access it.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 6

SMART DUST 2011

Chapter 3:
TINYOS

3.1 What is TinyOS?

TinyOS is an open-source operating system designed for wireless embedded

sensor networks. The operating system known as TinyOS was originally designed
specifically for smart dust. The TinyOS or Tiny Micro threading Operating System is
similar to Windows in that it is run by each and every mote and only requires 8 kilobytes
of memory to run. TinyOS manages the sensors, power, and communication with other
motes. To save power, the software is designed to allow the motes to “sleep” for over 98
percent of the time. They wake up once a second, collect data for 50 microseconds and
transmit for another 1000 microseconds, and then they return to sleep mode for the next
998,950 microseconds
It features a component-based architecture which enables rapid innovation and
implementation while minimizing code size as required by the severe memory constraints
inherent in sensor networks. TinyOS's component library includes network protocols,
distributed services, sensor drivers, and data acquisition tools – all of which can be used
as-is or be further refined for a custom application. TinyOS's event-driven execution
model enables fine-grained power management yet allows the scheduling flexibility made
necessary by the unpredictable nature of wireless communication and physical world
interfaces.

3.2 Requirements

Four broad requirements motivate the design of TinyOS:

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 7

SMART DUST 2011

3.2.1 Limited resources

Motes have very limited physical resources, due to the goals of small size, low
cost, and low power consumption. Current motes consist of about a 1-MIPS processor
and tens of kilobytes of storage.

3.2.2 Reactive concurrency

In a typical sensor network application, a node is responsible for sampling aspects
of its environment through sensors, perhaps manipulating it through actuators,
performing local data processing, transmitting data, routing data for others, and
participating in various distributed processing tasks, such as statistical aggregation or
feature recognition. Many of these events, such as radio management, require real-time
responses. This requires an approach to concurrency management that reduces potential
bugs while respecting resource and timing constraints.

3.2.3 Flexibility
The variation in hardware and applications and the rate of innovation require a
flexible OS that is both application-specific to reduce space and power, and independent
of the boundary between hardware and software. In addition, the OS should support fine-
grain modularity and inter-positioning to simplify reuse and innovation.

3.2.4 Low power

Demands of size and cost, as well as untethered operation make low power
operation a key goal of mote design. Battery density doubles roughly every 50 years,
which makes power an ongoing challenge. Although energy harvesting offers many
promising solutions, at the very small scale of motes people can harvest only Microwatts
of power. This is insufficient for continuous operation of even the most energy-efficient
designs. Given the broad range of applications for sensor networks, TinyOS must not
only address extremely low-power operation, but also provide a great deal of flexibility in
power-management and duty-cycle strategies.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 8

SMART DUST 2011

Chapter 4:

COMMUNICATION

4.1 Communication Technologies

Primarily, two technologies can be used for Communication between the smart
dusts and the BASE station Transceiver (BST), they are as follows:

i. Radio Frequency Transmission

ii. Optical transmission technique

 Passive Laser based Communication

 Active Laser based Communication
 Fiber Optic Communication

All of them have their relative advantages and disadvantages.

4.2 Radio Frequency Transmission

It is based on the generation, propagation and detection of electromagnetic waves

with a frequency range from tens of kHz to hundreds of GHz. It could be used to function
as both the uplink and the downlink. Since RF transceiver typically consists of relatively
complex circuitry, it is impossible to achieve the required low power operation using
such an approach in a smart dust system. When large numbers of motes are involved in
smart dust, RF links may employ alternative multiplexing techniques: time, frequency or
code-division multiplexing. Their use leads to modulation, bandpass filtering,
demodulation circuitry, and additional circuitry, all of which needs to be considered
Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 9
SMART DUST 2011

based on power consumption. RF communication can be used for smart dust

communication but it poses following problems:
 Size of the antenna: Since the size of the antenna should be ¼ of the carrier
wavelength, if we reduce the size of the antenna (which is very difficult to
achieve) the wavelength of the carrier wave will decrease, thus requiring high
frequency transmission. This system will no longer comply with low power
consumption requirement of the small dust.
 RF communication can only be achieved by using time, frequency or code
division.
 Multiplexing (TDMA, FDMA, or CDMA) each having their own
complications. For TDMA mote should transfer at high bit rate (as high as
aggregate uplink capacity) in absence of other transmission. Beside this, mote
should coordinate their transmission with other mote. In FDMA, the accurate
control of oscillator frequency is required. Since CDMA operates for a
relatively extended time interval, it requires high-speed digital circuitry and it
consumes excessive power. Both FDMA and CDMA should avoid
coordination between dust motes and they require dust motes to be
preprogrammed with unique frequencies or codes in order to prevent such
coordination.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 10

SMART DUST 2011

Fig.6: Full mesh Architecture

4.3 Optical Transmission Technique

4.3.1 Passive Laser based communication

The Smart Dust can employ a passive laser based communication scheme to
establish a bi-directional communication link between dust nodes and a base station
transceiver (BST). For downlink communication (BST to dust), the base station points a
modulated laser beam at a node. The latter uses a simple optical receiver to decode the
incoming message. For uplink communication (dust to BST), the base station points an
un-modulated laser beam at a node, which in turn modulates and reflects back the beam
to the BST. For this, the dust nodes are equipped with a Corner Cube Retro Reflector
(CCR). The CCR has the property that any incident ray of light is reflected back to the
source under certain conditions. If one of the mirrors is misaligned, this retro reflection
property is spoiled. The Smart Dust CCR has an electrostatic actuator that can deflect one

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 11

SMART DUST 2011

of the mirrors at kilohertz rates. Using this actuator, the incident laser beam is “on-off”
modulated and reflected back to the BST.

This type of design implies a single-hop network topology, where dust nodes
cannot directly communicate with each other, but only with a base station. The base
station can be placed quite far away from the nodes, since the employed laser
communication works over a range of hundreds of meters, provided a free line-of-sight
between the BST and the nodes. Communication may suffer from significant and highly
variable delays if the laser beam is not already pointing at a node that is subject to
communication with the BST. Smart Dust nodes can be highly mobile, since nodes are
small enough to be moved by winds or even to remain suspended in air, buoyed by air
currents.

Advantage of optical links:

 Optical transceivers require only simple baseband analog and digital circuitry; no
modulators, active bandpass filters or demodulators are needed.
 The short wavelength of visible or near-infrared light (of the order of 1 micron)
makes it possible for a millimeter-scale device to emit a narrow beam (i.e., high
antenna gain can be achieved).
 A base-station transceiver (BTS) equipped with a compact imaging receiver can
decode the simultaneous transmissions from a large number of dust motes at
different locations within the receiver field of view, which is a form of space-
division multiplexing.
 The CCR makes make it possible for dust motes to use passive optical
transmission techniques, i.e., to transmit modulated optical signals without
supplying any optical power.

Requirements for Passive Laser-based Transmission:

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 12

SMART DUST 2011

 Successful decoding of these simultaneous transmissions requires that dust motes

not block one another’s line of sight to the BTS. Such blockage is unlikely, in
view of the dust motes’ small size.
 A second requirement for decoding of simultaneous transmission is that the
images of different dust motes be formed on different pixels in the BTS imaging
receiver. For example, suppose that the BTS views a 17-meter by 17-meter area
containing Smart Dust, and that it uses a high-speed video camera with a 256 by
256 pixel-imaging array. Each pixel views an area about 6.6 centimeters square.
Hence, simultaneous transmissions can be decoded as long as this distance
separates the dust motes.

4.3.2 Active Laser based Communication

Active optical communication typically uses an active-steered laser-diode based

transmitter to send a collimated laser beam to a base station. This system contains a
semiconductor laser, a collimating lens and a beam-steering micro-mirror as shown in
Figure 3. Active optical communication is suitable for peer-to-peer communication,
provided there exist a line of sight path between them. Using MEMS technology, the
components of the active communication network can be made to be small enough to fit
into the smart dust motes.
One of the disadvantages of the active transmitter is its relatively high power
consumption. This leads to the use of active optical communication for short duration
burst-mode communication only. In order to minimize the power consumption, the active
transmitter should have some protocol to aim the beams toward the receiver, for example,
using directional beam and an active beam-steering mechanism. These components
would make the design of the dust mote more complicated.

Active communication has the advantage of high power density. This provides
capable for optical wireless communication over enormous distances. Using active
optical communication one can form multi-hop networks. Burst-mode communication
provides the most energy-efficient way to schedule the multi-hop network. The active

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 13

SMART DUST 2011

laser-diode transmitter operates at up to several tens of megabits per second for a few
milliseconds.

4.3.3 Fiber-optic communication

Fiber-optical communication employs semiconductor laser, fiber cable and diode

receiver to generate, transfer and detects the optical signal. Its most of the characteristics
matches with that of passive optical communication. The relatively small size of the
optical transceiver is employed with low-power operation. Each dust mote does not need
to have an on board light source to transmit the data. By the using MEMS technology,
Corner cube retro-reflector is employed on each dust mote to modulate uplink data to
base station.

For downlink, a single laser transmitter in base station generates an on-off-keyed

signal containing downlink data and commands. The beam splitter divides the
interrogating signals into the fibers that are connected to each dust mote. After passing
through optical isolator, the signals go into directional coupler. Directional coupler
divided them into two fibers. One of them will be passed while the index-matching
material blocks the other. Finally, after passing GRIN-rod lens, the signals reach to the
receivers of each dust mote. On the uplink, each dust mote is equipped with a CCR. CCR
modulates interrogating beams from the base station and reflects these signals back to
fiber cable. The directional coupler divides the signals into two fibers. The signals in the
fiber that is connected to the optical isolator will be blocked, and the signals in the other
fiber will reach to the receiver in the base station.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 14

SMART DUST 2011

Fig.7: Fiber-optic Communication Setup

Fiber-optic communication has advantages and disadvantages over a passive free-

space optical communication. Since optical fiber communication employs fiber cables to
transfer and receive optical signals, it does not require the unbroken line-of-sight, the link
directionality, and human eye safety from laser is maintained. Each dust mote does not
need to employ more than one CCR, and the communication between dust motes and a
base station can be guaranteed. In addition, it has a longer range of communication link
than that of a free space passive optical communication.

However, fiber-optic communication has a limitation on the application. The

optical fiber cables restrict the mobility of dust mote. Since a base station should employ
several optical components for fiber connection to each dust mote, it may complicate
base station design.

Chapter 5:
APPLICATIONS

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 15

SMART DUST 2011

Not only does the Smart Dust remain suspended in the air for hours, the air
currents can also move them in the direction of flow. It is very hard to detect the presence
of the Smart Dust and it is even harder to get rid of them once deployed. Moreover it
does not cost much so can be densely deployed. Due to the above-mentioned features,
Smart Dust can be used in varied application fields. These are as follows:

 Environmental protection (identification and monitoring of pollution).

 Habitat monitoring (observing the behavior of the animals in there natural
habitat).
 Military application (monitoring activities in inaccessible areas, accompany
soldiers and alert them to any poisons or dangerous biological substances in the
air).
 Indoor/Outdoor Environmental Monitoring
 Security and Tracking
 Health and Wellness Monitoring (enter human bodies and check for physiological
problems)
 Power Monitoring
 Inventory Location Awareness
 Factory and Process Automation
 Structural Monitoring
 Monitor traffic and redirecting it

 Imagine a suburban neighborhood or an apartment complex with motes that

monitor the water and power meters. Since all of the meters (and motes) in a typical
neighborhood are within 100 feet (30 meters) of each other, the attached motes
could form an ad hoc network amongst themselves. At one end of the neighborhood
is a super-mote with a network connection or a cell-phone link. In this imagined
neighborhood, someone doesn't have to drive a truck through the neighborhood
each month to read the individual water or power meters- the motes pass the data

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 16

SMART DUST 2011

along from one to another, and the super-mote transmits it. Measurement can occur
hourly or daily if desired.

 A farmer, vineyard owner, or ecologist could equip motes with sensors that detect
temperature, humidity, etc., making each mote a mini weather station. Scattered
throughout a field, vineyard or forest, these motes would allow the tracking of
micro-climates.

 A building manager could attach motes to every electrical wire throughout an office
building. These motes would have induction sensors to detect power consumption
on that individual wire and let the building manager see power consumption down
to the individual outlet. If power consumption in the building seems high, the
building manager can track it to an individual tenant. Although this would be
possible to do with wires, with motes it would be far less expensive.

 A biologist could equip an endangered animal with a collar containing a mote that
senses position, temperature, etc. As the animal moves around, the mote collects
and stores data from the sensors. In the animal's environment, the biologists could
place zones or strips with data collection motes. When the animal wanders into
one of these zones, the mote in the collar would dump its data to the ad hoc
network in the zone, which would then transmit it to the biologist.

 Motes placed every 100 feet on a highway and equipped with sensors to detect
traffic flow could help police recognize where an accident has stopped traffic.
Because no wires are needed, the cost of installation would be relatively low.

The possibilities in implementing Smart Dust are endless. The following are some
of the ideas floating around that show a few of the ways that smart does can affect
our lives in the future:

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 17

SMART DUST 2011

 The monitoring of weather and seismology – Better prediction of earthquakes and

tornados.
 The monitoring of environments on Mars and other planets.
 Internal spacecraft monitoring – this can be useful in preventing the shuttle from
crashing due to technical problems by finding them before they occur.
 Land to space communication networks – faster communication from earth to
space with real time data.
 Chemical and biological sensors - could be used to monitor the purity of drinking
or sea water, to detect hazardous chemical or biological agents in the air or to
locate and destroy tumor cells in the body
 Defense related sensor networks – this will be a great help for military action such
as surveillance.
 Weapons stockpile monitoring – monitor weapons of mass destruction
 Inventory Control – Know where your products are and what shape they're in
anytime, anywhere. Sort of like FedEx tracking on steroids for all products in
your production stream from raw materials to delivered goods.
 Product quality monitoring – smart dust can have many positive effects on quality
control: Temperature, humidity monitoring of meat, produce, dairy products, etc.
 Smart offices and smart homes –environmental conditions in the office or home
are tailored to the desires of every individual.
 Sports – smart dust could bring a whole new aspect to sporting events. Sailboat
racers can monitor the changes in the wind and current to gain an advantage.
Also, think about the possibilities of putting motes on the balls during games to
monitor things such as ball spin and speed.

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 18

SMART DUST 2011

Chapter 6:
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE ENHANCEMENT

6.1 Conclusion

The new Smart Dust technology has more future applications that will benefit
society in general in spite of privacy and environmental concerns. There is growing
feeling among researchers of its huge impact on society. The motes could be powered by
solar light, barometric pressure and vibrations in the wall. In the future all belongings will
respond to their owner. Houses and offices would be aware of owner’s presence and
orientation in a given room. Lighting, heating, and cooling will adjust according to the
owner’s settings automatically. Cars will know highway conditions on one’s favorite
route home, instantaneous information on speed, history of cars between source and
destination. Every valuable property will have its own sensors that will give instant
information to its owner.

In spite of the design challenges in the size of the mote, power supply,
communication and computation, researchers continue to make progress towards their
main goal of reducing the size of the mote to 1-millimeter cube. Hopefully in the next
couple of years the objectives of the Smart Dust project will be realized, and
commercialization and subsequent use will be widespread throughout society. In the
military for example it could offer an alternative and cheaper way to monitor enemies by
reducing cost, risk to human life and performance. In the future there will be billions of
motes embedded in everything that will be able to sense, compute and communicate with
each other using ultra low power.

6.2 Future Enhancement

There are many ongoing researches on Smart Dust, the main purpose of these
researches is to make Smart Dust mote as small as possible and to make it available at as

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 19

SMART DUST 2011

low price as possible. Soon we will see Smart Dust being used in varied application from
all spans of life.
Chapter 7
BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Yunbin Song: ”Optical Communication Systems for Smart Dust”

 J. M. Kahn, R. H. Katz, K. S. J. Pister: Next Century Challenges:
 Mobile Networking for “Smart Dust”
 An Introduction to Microelectromechancal System Engineering:
Nadim Maluf, Kirt William
 B.A. Warneke, M.D. Scott, B.S. Leibowitz: Distributed Wireless
Sensor Network
 http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/labnotes
 TinyOS- http://www.tinyos.net
 Smart dust. Website:
http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/SmartDust

Dept. of CS&E, BGSIT 20