Smartdust is a system of many small microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) such as sensors, robots or other devices that can detect, for example, light, temperature, vibration, magnetism or chemicals. Typically, they operate in a computer network wirelessly and are distributed in some areas to perform tasks, usually detected by radio frequency identification. Without an antenna of a much larger size, the range of small intelligent dust communication devices is measured in a few millimeters and may be vulnerable to deactivation and electromagnetic destruction by exposure to microwaves.
Smart Dust concepts emerged from a RAND workshop in 1992 and a series of DARPA ISAR studies in the mid-1990s due to potential military applications of the technology. The work was heavily influenced by work at UCLA and the University of Michigan during that period, as well as the science fiction authors Stanislaw Lem, Neal Stephenson and Verning Vinge. The first public presentation of the concept by that name was at the meeting of the American Vacuum Society in Anaheim in 1996.
A Smart Dust research proposal was presented to DARPA by Kristofer SJ Pister, Joe Kahn and Bernhard Boser, all of the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997. The proposal, to build wireless sensor nodes with a volume of one cubic millimeter, Was selected to fund in 1998. The project led to a smaller working speck than a grain of rice, and larger "COTS dust" devices began the TinyOS effort in Berkeley.
The concept was later expanded by Kris Pister in 2001. A recent review discusses various techniques for taking smartdust in sensor networks beyond the millimeter dimensions at the micrometre level.
The Ultra Fast System component of the University of Glasgow's Nano-electronics Research Center is a founding member of a large international consortium that is developing a related concept: smart particles. Smart Dust entered the Gartner Hype Cycle at Emerging Technologies in 2003, and returned in 2013 as the most speculative participant.