Proposed
application to space exploration
Swarms of
smart dust might be packed into nose cones of planetary probes and subsequently
ejected into the atmosphere of a planet where they would be carried by the
wind. For a planet such as Mars smart dust motes would each be of the size of a
grain of sand.
The same
technique might be used for exploring distant solar systems around nearby stars.
However, the idea would be to use solar sailing variants of smart dust that
respond to the solar wind and radiation pressure.
For dense
atmospheres such as Venus the motes might be quite large. They would have to be
scaled-up to have the appropriate lift and drag properties.
In each
application the swarms would explore their environment taking and storing
sensor measurements and maintaining wireless communications with each other and
their parent spacecraft.
Proposed application to space exploration
Analogy with motion of blown sand
Algorithms for collective motion
of smart dust
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