Smart Dust Technology For Swiftlet Farming House !!!

How small do you think a sensor can be?

Well most probably a 5 cent coint size. Hmm maybe the size of a rice grains.

The right answer is 0.05 X 0.05mm size.

It is more like a dust.



I was fascinated with this new technology and I hope one day we can apply the technology in our BH to monitor the temperature, humidity, darkness, vibration and so forth.

The best would be to detect those predators or perhaps water leaking from those water hose.

Read this article found at: http://www.acfnewsource.org/democracy/smart_dust.html

Tiny wireless computers can monitor hard to reach places.


In early 2004 eight tiny sensors were dropped from a plane near a military base in Twenty-nine Palms, CA. After hitting the ground, the sensors – also known as smart dust sensors – organized themselves into a network and quickly detected a fleet of military vehicles on the ground. They determined the direction, speed and size of a series of armored vehicles traveling along the road and later transmitted the data to a laptop at a nearby base camp.

Smart Dust sensors are mini computers – as small as a grain of rice in some cases -- that can monitor and evaluate their physical environment and can relay the information via wireless communication. Commonly known as microelectromechanical systems or MEMs, these sensors were developed by UC Berkeley electrical engineer professor Kris Pister who coined the phrase “smart dust.” Smart dust sensors can monitor elements such as temperature, moisture, heart rate, energy use, vibration, light, motion, radiation, gas, chemicals, current humidity, and pressure. According to Professor James Demmel, Chief Scientist CITRIS (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society) these devices will soon be ubiquitous and have many real-world applications, such as use in emergency rescue, or monitoring redwood trees from high in their branches.

Software has been developed to run these mini computers called TinyOS (OS = Operating System). A key feature of TinyOS is the ability of the sensors to automatically organize themselves into a communications network when placed in the physical environment. This allows the sensors to talk to each other via wireless radio signals by sending and receiving data along the path of placed sensors, sort of like a fire bucket brigade. If any one connection is interrupted, the sensors self-correct and pass the information on to the next available sensor.

Each sensor has a chip that does the computing work – recording things like temperature and motion at its location. Each sensor also has a tiny radio transmitter that allows it to talk to other sensors within 100 feet or so. With a single network of 10,000 sensors – thought to be the biggest array of sensors currently possible -- you could presumably cover 9 sq. miles and get information about each point along the way. The data ultimately works its way to a base station that can send the info to a PC or to a wireless network.

The scientists who are working with this technology say smart dust sensors can be used to detect the location or movement of enemy troops in areas too dangerous or remote for soldiers to operate. Scattering hundreds of self-networking sensors from a plane or unmanned drone onto the battlefield, in theory, could produce critical information and lead to strategic advantage. Sensors could also be used to detect the presence of chemical weapons and could give troops the time needed to put on protective gear.

The same technology used to detect the location and movement of military forces could also be used for more peaceful purposes. Professor Demmel says that energy efficiency is one of the areas where smart dust sensors are poised to really make an impact. The sensors could be used to determine the cost of running appliances so homeowners could regulate their use. Home appliances could have a sensor that would inform the user, through a kind of high tech thermostat, how much it costs to run the appliance at that particular time. When demand for energy is high (for example, during the middles of the day) people could chose when to use energy. Another possibility is to use sensors in conjunction with fire departments to develop a sensor-based system for responding to disasters.

Smart dust sensors are being used to understand more about the interplay between plants and their environment and how the loss of redwood forests might affect local climate and water resources. Redwood expert Todd Dawson is using the sensors to gather data on pressure, relative humidity, photosynthetic bands of light and total solar radiation from areas of the forest that would otherwise be almost impossible to measure.

How about this: http://www.pinktentacle.com/2007/02/hitachi-develops-rfid-powder/

Hitachi develops RFID powder
14 Feb 2007

Hitachi’s new RFID chips (pictured on right, next to a human hair) are 64 times smaller than their mu-chips (left)

RFID keeps getting smaller. On February 13, Hitachi unveiled a tiny, new “powder” type RFID chip measuring 0.05 x 0.05 mm — the smallest yet — which they aim to begin marketing in 2 to 3 years.

By relying on semiconductor miniaturization technology and using electron beams to write data on the chip substrates, Hitachi was able to create RFID chips 64 times smaller than their currently available 0.4 x 0.4 mm mu-chips. Like mu-chips, which have been used as an anti-counterfeit measure in admission tickets, the new chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit ID number.

The new chips are also 9 times smaller than the prototype chips Hitachi unveiled last year, which measure 0.15 x 0.15 mm.

At 5 microns thick, the RFID chips can more easily be embedded in sheets of paper, meaning they can be used in paper currency, gift certificates and identification. But since existing tags are already small enough to embed in paper, it leads one to wonder what new applications the developers have in mind.

[Source: Fuji Sankei]