Berkeley’s Smart Dust project, led by Professors Pister and Kahn, explores the limits on size and power consumption in autonomous sensor nodes. Size reduction is paramount, to make the nodes as inexpensive and easy-to-deploy as possible. The research team is confident that they can incorporate the requisite sensing, communication, and computing hardware, along with a power supply, in a volume no more than a few cubic millimeters, while still achieving impressive performance in terms of sensor functionality and communications capability. These millimeter-scale nodes are called “Smart Dust.” It is certainly within the realm of possibility that future prototypes of Smart Dust could be small enough to remain suspended in air, buoyed by air currents, sensing and communicating for hours or days on end.
'Smart dust' — sensor-laden networked computer nodes that are just cubic millimetres in volume. The smart dust project envisions a complete sensor network node, including power supply, processor, sensor and communications mechanisms, in a single cubic millimetre. Smart dust motes could run for years , given that a cubic millimetre battery can store 1J and could be backed up with a solar cell or vibrational energy source
The goal of the Smart Dust project is to build a millimeter-scale sensing and communication platform for a massively distributed sensor network.This device will be around the size of a grain of sand and will contain sensors, computational ability, bi-directional wireless communications, and a power supply. Smart dust consists of series of circuit and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) designs to cast those functions into custom silicon. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) consist of extremely tiny mechanical elements, often integrated together with electronic circuitry
The MEMS Technology in Smart Dust
Smart dust requires mainly revolutionary advances in miniaturization, integration & energy management. Hence designers have used.MEMS technology to build small sensors, optical communication components, and power supplies. Micro-electro mechanical systems consists of extremely tiny mechanical elements, often integrated together with electronic circuitory. They are measured in micrometers, that is millions of a meter. They are made in a similar fashion as computer chips.The advantage of this manufacturing process is not simply that small structures can be achieved but also that thousands or even millions of system elements can be fabricated simultaneously. This allows systems to be both highly complex and extremely low-cost.
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) is the integration of mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics on a common silicon substrate through micro fabrication technology. While the electronics are fabricated using integrated circuit (IC) process sequences (e.g., CMOS, Bipolar processes), the micromechanical components are fabricated using compatible "micro machining" processes that selectively etch away parts of the silicon wafer or add new structural layers to form the mechanical and electromechanical devices. MEMS realizes a complete System On chip technology.
Microelectronic integrated circuits can be thought of as the "brains" of a system and allow microsystems to sense and control the environment. Sensors gather information from the environment through measuring mechanical, thermal, biological, chemical, optical, and magnetic phenomena. The electronics then process the information derived from the sensors and through some decision making capability direct the actuators to respond by moving, positioning, regulating, and filtering, thereby controlling the environment for some desired purpose. Because MEMS devices are manufactured using batch fabrication techniques similar to those used for integrated circuits, unprecedented levels of functionality, reliability, and sophistication can be placed on a small silicon chip at a relatively low cost.The deep insight of MEMS is as a new manufacturing technology, a way of making complex electromechanical systems using batch fabrication techniques similar to those used for integrated circuits, and uniting these electromechanical elements together with electronics.Historically, sensors and actuators are the most costly and unreliable part of a sensor-actuator-electronics system. MEMS technology allows these complex electromechanical systems to be manufactured using batch fabrication techniques, increasing the reliability of the sensors and actuators to equal that of integrated circuits. The performance of MEMS devices and systems is expected to be superior to macroscale components and systems, the price is predicted to be much lower
OPERATION OF THE MOTE
The Smart Dust mote is run by a microcontroller that not only determines the tasks performed by the mote, but controls power to the various components of the system to conserve energy. Periodically the microcontroller gets a reading from one of the sensors, which measure one of a number of physical or chemical stimuli such as temperature, ambient light, vibration, acceleration, or air pressure, processes the data, and stores it in memory. It also occasionally turns on the optical receiver to see if anyone is trying to communicate with it. This communication may include new programs or messages from other motes. In response to a message or upon its own initiative the microcontroller will use the corner cube retroreflector or laser to transmit sensor data or a message to a base station or another mote.
The primary constraint in the design of the Smart Dust motes is volume, which in turn puts a severe constraint on energy since we do not have much room for batteries or large solar cells. Thus, the motes must operate efficiently and conserve energy whenever possible. Most of the time, the majority of the mote is powered off with only a clock and a few timers running. When a timer expires, it powers up a part of the mote to carry out a job, then powers off. A few of the timers control the sensors that measure one of a number of physical or chemical stimuli such as temperature, ambient light, vibration, acceleration, or air pressure. When one of these timers expires, it powers up the corresponding sensor, takes a sample, and converts it to a digital word. If the data is interesting, it may either be stored directly in the SRAM or the microcontroller is powered up to perform more complex operations with it. When this task is complete, everything is again powered down and the timer begins counting again.
Another timer controls the receiver. When that timer expires, the receiver powers up and looks for an incoming packet. If it doesn't see one after a certain length of time, it is powered down again. The mote can receive several types of packets, including ones that are new program code that is stored in the program memory. This allows the user to change the behavior of the mote remotely. Packets may also include messages from the base station or other motes. When one of these is received, the microcontroller is powered up and used to interpret the contents of the message. The message may tell the mote to do something in particular, or it may be a message that is just being passed from one mote to another on its way to a particular destination. In response to a message or to another timer expiring, the microcontroller will assemble a packet containing sensor data or a message and transmit it using either the corner cube retroreflector or the laser diode, depending on which it has. The laser diode contains the onboard laser which sends signals to the base station by blinking on and off. The corner cube retroreflector , transmits information just by moving a mirror and thus changing the reflection of a laser beam from the base station.
This technique is substantially more energy efficient than actually generating some radiation. With the laser diode and a set of beam scanning mirrors, we can transmit data in any direction desired, allowing the mote to communicate with other Smart Dust motes.
COMMUNICATING WITH A SMART DUST
COMMUNICATING FROM A GRAIN OF SAND
Smart Dust’s full potential can only be attained when the sensor nodes communicate with one another or with a central base station. Wireless communication facilitates simultaneous data collection from thousands of sensors. There are several options for communicating to and from a cubic-millimeter computer.
Radio-frequency and optical communications each have their strengths and weaknesses. Radio-frequency communication is well under-stood, but currently requires minimum power levels in the multiple milliwatt range due to analog mixers, filters, and oscillators. If whisker-thin antennas of centimeter length can be accepted as a part of a dust mote, then reasonably efficient antennas can be made for radio-frequency communication. While the smallest complete radios are still on the order of a few hundred cubic millimeters, there is active work in the industry to produce cubic-millmeter radios.
Moreover RF techniques cannot be used because of the following disadvantages :-
1. Dust motes offer very limited space for antennas, thereby demanding extremely short wavelength (high frequency transmission). Communication in this regime is not currently compatible with low power operation of the smart dust.
2. Furthermore radio transceivers are relatively complex circuits making it difficult to reduce their power consumption to required microwatt levels.
3. They require modulation, band pass filtering and demodulation circuitory.
So an attractive alternative is to employ free space optical transmission. Studies have shown that when a line of sight path is available , well defined free space optical links require significantly lower energy per bit than their RF counterpaths.
There are several reasons for power advantage of optical links.
1. Optical transceivers require only simple baseband analog and digital circuitory .
2. No modulators,active band pass filters or demodulators are needed.
3. The short wavelength of visible or near infra red light (of the order of 1 micron) makes it possible for a millimeter scale device to emit a narrow beam (ie, high antenna gain can be achieved).
As another consequence of this short wavelength , a Base Station Transceiver (BTS) equipped with a compact imaging receiver can decode the simultaneous transmissions from a large number of dust motes from different locations within the receiver field of view , which is a form of space division multiplexing. 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 dust mote’s small size.
Semiconductor lasers and diode receivers are intrinsically small, and the corresponding transmission and detection circuitry for on/off keyed optical communication is more amenable to low-power operation than most radio schema. Perhaps most important, optical power can be collimated in tight beams even from small apertures. Diffraction enforces a fundamental
limit on the divergence of a beam, whether it comes from an antenna or a lens. Laser pointers are cheap examples of milliradian collimation from a millimeter aperture. To get similar collimation for a 1-GHz radio-frequency signal would require an antenna 100 meters across, due to the difference in wavelength of the two transmissions. As a result, optical transmitters of millimeter size can get antenna gains of one million or more, while similarly sized radio-frequency antennas are doomed by physics to be mostly isotropic.
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