An increasing amount of effort and interest is being expended on development activities incorporating embedded sensors within complex systems for the purpose of collecting data for system-related diagnosis and prognosis activities. Collected data would then be transmitted to an external collection system and used to determine optimal maintenance procedures, to warn of an impending failure, to understand system history, or for a number of other purposes. The benefit to the system owner could be either reduced maintenance costs, improved system reliability and safety, or improved battlefield situational awareness. This proposed Phase I effort will determine the feasibility of integrating some key technologies to realize an important component of future embedded sensing systems, the modular self-powered wireless micro/nanosensor, or "smart dust". The Phase I effort will development a partial prototype and the following Phase II effort will complete the prototyping activity and integrate the device in a wireless sensor network.
Keywords: Smart Dust, Wireless Sensors, Mems, Nems, Nanotechnology, Energy Scavenging
