JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

HYDERABAD

Smart Dust
A Technical Seminar Report Submitted To
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BY
G. Sunandini (11R11A1275)

Under The Esteemed Guidance of

N. Chitra
(Assistant Professor)

Striving Towards Perfection

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Geethanjali College of Engineering And Technology

Cheeryal(V), Keesara(M), RR.Dist
2011-2015

Smart Dust

Striving Towards Perfection

A Technical Seminar Report Submitted to the Faculty of

Information Technology

Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology

(Affiliated to J.N.T.U.H, Approved by AICTE, NEW DELHI)
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the award of degree of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
By
G. Sunandini (11R11A1275)
Under the Esteemed Guidance of

N. Chitra
Assistant Professor
Department of Information Technology

Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology

Cheeryal(V), Keesara(M), R.R.Dist, A.P-501 301.
2014-2015

ii

A Technical Seminar Report

On

Smart Dust
Submitted To
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

BY
G. Sunandini (11R11A1275)

Striving Towards Perfection

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Geethanjali College of Engineering And Technology

Cheeryal(V), Keesara(M), R.R.Dist
2011-2015

iii

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Geethanjali College of Engineering and Technology
Cheeryal (V), Keesara (M), R.R.Dist
2010-2014

Striving Towards Perfection

CERTIFICATE
Certified that the technical seminar report entitled Smart Dust which is a bona fide work
carried out by G. Sunandini bearing register No. 11R11A1275 ,in partial fulfillment for the
award of the degree of Bachelor of Technology in Information Technology of Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University, Hyderabad during the year 2014-2015. It is certified that all
corrections/suggestions indicated for internal assessment have been incorporated in the report.
The technical seminar report has been approved as it satisfies the academic requirements in
respect of technical seminar work prescribed for the said degree.

-----------------------------Internal Guide

------------------------------Head of the Department

------------------------------Examiner

iv

DECLARATION
This is to Certify that the technical seminar report entitled Smart Dust submitted to
JNTUH in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the Degree of Bachelor of
Technology (B-Tech), is an original work carried out by G. Sunandini bearing register No.
11R11A1275 under the guidance of N. Chitra, Assistant Professor, in the Department of
Information Technology. This matter embodied in this technical seminar report is a genuine
work, done by the students and has not been submitted whether the university or to any other
university/Institute for the fulfillment of the requirement of any course of study.

G. Sunandini (11R11A1275)

ABSTRACT
Coined by University of California, Berkeley professor Kristofer Pister, the term Smart
Dust refers to tiny electronic bundles of power, sensors, computing and communications
electronics that are cheap and abundant enough to scatter like, well, dust. These tiny machines
sense their environment, perform basic data processing and communicate with each otherto
serve medical, industrial and military purposes. When Pister coined the term in the late 1990s,
the concept attracted funding from DARPA, the Pentagons advanced research outfit. Tiny
electronic devices are designed to capture mountains of information about their surroundings
while literally floating on air. Nowadays, sensors, computers and communicators are shrinking
down to ridiculously small sizes. If all of these are packed into a single tiny device, it can open
up new dimensions in the field of communications.
The power system consists of a thick-film battery, a solar cell with a charge-integrating
capacitor for periods of darkness, or both. Depending on its objective, the design integrates
various sensors, including light, temperature, vibration, magnetic field, acoustic, and wind shear,
onto the mote. An integrated circuit provides sensor-signal processing, communication, control,
data storage, and energy management. A photodiode allows optical data reception.
The idea behind 'Smart Dust' is to pack sophisticated sensors, tiny computers and
wireless communicators in to a cubic-millimetre mote to form the basis of integrated, massively
distributed sensor networks. They will be light enough to remain suspended in air for hours. As
the motes drift on wind, they can monitor the environment for light, sound, temperature,
chemical composition and a wide range of other information, and beam that data back to the base
station, miles away.

vi

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Number

Figure Name

Page Number

1.1

Size of a mote compared to a coin

3.1

Free Space Optical Network Utilizing The CCR Based Passive

Uplink

11

4.1

Conceptual Diagram of the Smart Dust Mote for 1mm3

autonomous distributed sensing and communication

14

4.2

Timer and associated setup memories

15

4.3

Functional blocks whose connectivity is configured by the setup

memory when a timer expires.

16

4.4

Example configuration to sample data

17

vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviation

Full Form

Page Number

MEMS

Micro Electro Mechanical

Systems

DARPA

Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency

CCR

Cube Retro Reflector

CMOS

Complementary Metal Oxide

Semiconductor

IC

Integrated Circuit

IR

Infrared Radiation

14

BTS

Base Station Tranceiver

CDMA

Code Division Mulltiple Access

12

SDMA

Spac Division Multiple Access

12

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.no
1.
2.
3.

4.
5.
6.

7.
8.
9.
10.

Contents

Page no.

Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Objective
Smart Dust Structure
2.1 Corner Cube Retro Reflector
2.2 The MEMS Technology in Smart Dust
Operation Of The Mote
3.1 Communicating With Smart Dust
3.1.1 Optical Communications
3.1.2 Corner Cube Retroreflector
3.2 Active Optical Transmitters
3.3 Listening To A Dust Field
3.3.1 Video Camera
3.4 Advantages of Imaging Receivers
Core Functionality Specification
4.1 Proposed Architecture
4.2 Performing A Task
Implementation
Current Advancements
6.1 Microbiotics
6.2 Cots Dust
6.3 Golem Dust
Major Challenges
Applications
Conclusion
Bibliography

ix

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3
7

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20

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