DARPA

MTO MEMS

SMART DUST
K. Pister, J. Kahn, B. Boser
(UCB)
S. Morris
(MLB)
http://eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/SmartDust
http://spyplanes.com
SMART DUST
 Goals

• Autonomous sensor node (mote) in 1 mm 3

• MAV delivery
• Thousands of motes
• Many interrogators

• Demonstrate useful/complex integration in

1 mm3

SMART DUST
 COTS Dust
GOALS:
• Create a network of sensors
• Explore system design issues
• Provide a platform to test Dust components
• Use off the shelf components

SMART DUST
 COTS Dust - RF Motes
• Atmel Microprocessor N

• RF Monolithics transceiver W E
2 Axis Magnetic
S
Sensor
• 916MHz, ~20m range, 4800 bps
2 Axis
• 1 week fully active, 2 yr @1% Accelerometer

Light Intensity
Sensor
Humidity Sensor

Pressure Sensor

Temperature Sensor

SMART DUST
 COTS Dust - Distributed Algorithms
• 1”, $100 Sensor nodes are easy
• algorithms?

-1
-0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
SMART DUST
2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
 COTS Dust - Optical Motes

CCR mote
Laser mote • 4 corner cubes
• 650nm laser pointer • 40% hemisphere
• 2 day life full duty
SMART DUST
 CCR Interogator
Top View of the Interrogator
Quarter-wave
Filter Polarizing Plate
Beamsplitter

CCD Camera Lens

0.25% reflectance
on each surface

Frequency-Doubled Beam
YAG Green Laser Expander 45o mirror

SMART DUST
 Video Semaphore Decoding

Diverged beam @ 300m San Francisco (Coit Tower) to

Shadow or full sunlight Berkeley (Cory Hall)

SMART DUST
 1 Mbps CMOS imaging receiver

Put an asynchronous receiver

at every pixel

SIPO Shift CRC Check

Photosensor Register Local Bus Driver

0.25 um CMOS in fab

Signal Processing
A/D Conversion
Off Chip
Bus Driver

Funded by DARPA/MTO/STAB
Pixel Array
SMART DUST
 Micro Mote - First Attempt

300 um

SMART DUST
 2D beam scanning

AR coated dome
lens
Steering Mirror

laser

CMOS ASIC

SMART DUST
 6-bit DAC Driving Scanning Mirror

0.8

Normalized beam position

0.6

• Open loop control

•
0.4
Insensitive to disturbance
• Potentially low power
0.2

0
10 20 30 40
Time (seconds)
SMART DUST
~8mm3 laser scanner
Two 4-bit mechanical DACs
control mirror scan angles.
~6 degrees azimuth, 3 elevation

SMART DUST
 Power and Energy

• Sources
• Solar cells
• Combustion/Thermopiles
• Storage
• Batteries ~1 J/mm3
• Capacitors ~1 mJ/mm3
• Usage
• Digital control: nJ/instruction
• Analog circuitry: nJ/sample
• Communication: nJ/bit

SMART DUST
 Combustion

• Solid rocket propellant

• integrated igniter
• thermoelectric generator

SMART DUST
 Dust Delivery

• Silicon maple seeds

• Silicon dandelions 8.E-06
SOI Solar Cell Performance

6.E-06

4.E-06

Current (A) and Power (W)

2.E-06
Current
Power
0.E+00
-0.1 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

-2.E-06

-4.E-06

-6.E-06
Voltage (V)

SMART DUST
 MAV Delivery
Built by MLB Co.

8”
• 60 mph
• 18 min
6” • 1 mi comm
SMART DUST
 24” Bat
40 mph top speed
30 minute loiter
autopilot: pressure
sensor, gyros, XLs
2 planes, 1 ground station,
in 1 suitcase

spyplanes.com
SMART DUST
 Marine LOE 4
3 MAVs participated, 1 flew

7 sorties
on station in minutes

SMART DUST
Goal for ‘01

SMART DUST
Virtual Keyboard

SMART DUST