Emerging challenges: Mobile networking for “Smart Dust”

TLDR

Large‑scale wireless sensor networks are becoming increasingly feasible thanks to advances that shrink size, lower power, and cut cost, enabling compact autonomous mobile nodes, yet networking and application layers are still lacking. The paper reviews Smart Dust technology and identifies research challenges for mobile networking and systems. The authors analyze the technology and highlight the need for coherent connectivity among many mobile nodes co‑located within a small volume.

Abstract

Large-scale networks of wireless sensors are becoming increasingly tractable. Advances in hardware technology and engineering design have led to dramatic reductions in size, power consumption and cost for digital circuitry, wireless communications and Micro ElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS). This has enabled very compact, autonomous and mobile nodes, each containing one or more sensors, computation and communication capabilities, and a power supply. The missing ingredient is the networking and applications layers needed to harness this revolutionary capability into a complete system. We review the key elements of the emergent technology of "Smart Dust" and outline the research challenges they present to the mobile networking and systems community, which must provide coherent connectivity to large numbers of mobile network nodes co-located within a small volume.