'Smart Dust' Exploration

[HoopyFrood]

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Smart dust' to explore planets

The idea of using millimetre-sized devices to explore far-flung locations is nothing new, but Dr Barker and his colleagues are starting to look in detail at how it might be achieved. The professor at Glasgow's Nanoelectronics Research Centre said computer chips of the size and sophistication required to meet the challenge already exist.

Smart dust could be packed into the nose cones of planetary probes and then released into the atmospheres of planets, where they would be carried on the wind. For a planet like Mars, smart dust particles would each have to be the size of a grain of sand.

By applying a voltage to alter the shape of the polymer sheath surrounding the chip, dust particle could be steered towards a target, even in high winds.

The polymer sheath surrounding the computer chip could be made to wrinkle or flatten out. Wrinkling the plastic sheath would increase the drag on the particle, lifting it higher on the wind. Flattening out the sheath would cause the particle to plummet.

From the BBC news site, titled "Smart Dust to explore planets".

 

[j d worthington]

I've not kept up with nanotechnology at all, I'm afraid. I have a question: how would data be received from them? In order to link to the main system, wouldn't that require a fair amount (relatively speaking) of power? Are they capable of that at such distances? If so, this could be a very big step forward in the space programs of many nations....

 

[chrispenycate]

Powr supply is the hang up. Combine the technology with the remote interrogation chip? No, because then it could only record when the "mother cship" is overhead.Requires something new in the way of batteries, possible based on living cell techniques.
And milimetres is not strictly nanotech; small, yes, but much bigger than a bacterium. You can gett a lot computing powr into a millimetre, if you can interface it.

 

[j d worthington]

And milimetres is not strictly nanotech; small, yes, but much bigger than a bacterium. You can gett a lot computing powr into a millimetre, if you can interface it.

Ah, true. Once again I get caught using my terms too loosely....

Yes. I was thinking those would be some of the problems... Still, that is a matter of engineering, and something that can be solved, I would think... probably more rapidly than we (or I) realize....