The world will be covered with "smart dust"

What will they be, computers of the future? The next generation of computers will be able to perform an even greater number of operations, and their size will be reduced to a mote.

Tiny computers that have received the name "smart dust" in academia will not differ from their older counterparts except in size. They will continue to work on the basis of miniature processors running a standard operating system with access to the same small RAM and flash memory modules. In the future, such microcomputers in the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, will be built into buildings and other objects around us, writes the scientific journal New Scientist.

Scientists at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (USA) called the Michigan Micro Motes their first prototypes of smart dust. The devices are about the size of a cubic millimeter and are equipped with temperature and motion sensors that transmit information over the radio.

How to charge such tiny computers? The world covered with “smart dust” is interesting, of course, but there is one small problem, which is the need to provide sensors with enough energy, says Joshua Smith, head of the sensor systems laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle (USA).

Like microscopic Robinson Crusoe, motes will be energized from the environment. A sensor near a light source can use tiny solar panels, while other sensors, under different conditions, produce electricity through temperature differences.

Micro Motes can be used to track the movement of large man-made structures, such as bridges and skyscrapers. In a smart house, smart dust will be able to control the lighting, temperature, carbon monoxide levels emitted during fuel combustion, and also report on the number of people in the room. Sensors embedded in your personal belongings will never be lost anywhere. To determine their current location in the real world will be using Google search.

Tiny computers can be used for medical purposes. Implanted in the body of the chips, will collect information on the main indicators of the patient's condition. Researchers at the University of Michigan have already conducted successful tests to implant Micro Mote into the tumor tissue of a laboratory mouse to observe the development of a tumor.

Researcher Smith is also working on WISP miniature computing platforms that communicate through radio frequency identification devices. Just like Micro Motes, sensory WISPs do not need batteries, because they are powered by electromagnetic energy, the source of which is, for example, a television tower.

But the main problem that will have to be solved in the course of computer miniaturization is data transfer. The amount of energy that Mote spends on performing 100,000 computational operations is only enough to transfer one bit of information to the outside world, said Prabal Dutt, head of the research group.

Meanwhile, scientists from Caltech have come close to creating eternal electronic chips.

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/technology/mir-pokroetsya-umnoj-pylyu.html.