Artist’s concept of nanorobots in
a bloodstream, with cells. Newscom 

Quantum dots by Evident Technologies, here in powder form, can be used
to tag cells or tissue in medical tests.

Sweeping Changes Coming With Smart Dust
Tiny sensors wirelessly
networked could boost
health, security, more

First Of Two Parts

BY J . BONASIA
AND DOUG TSURUOKA
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Imagine a cloud of sensors, each
the size of a grain of sand, blown
aloftbyhurricanewindsandrelaying
data on the storm to weather
stations below. Or picture tiny robotic
chips drifting through a
human artery to locate, and eradicate,
a hidden clot.
While the above advances are
likely far off, dozens of companies
are working on the basic element
for such inventions: smart dust.
Smart dust refers to tiny, wireless
networks of sensors. You also
could think of the sensors as tiny
chips, or even miniature robots.
The smart dust detects data about
light, temperatures or vibrations
and transmits that data to larger
computersystems.
Researchers hope to shrink
these devices to the size of a speck
of dust via nanotechnology — the
science of building molecule-size
electronic devices. Some scientists
see smart dust as quite possibly
a game-changing technology.
“Smart dust will be one of the
central industries of tomorrow,”
futurist Alvin Toffler told IBD.
(SeeQ&Aon A5.)
That’s the future.
The reality is that after more
than a decade of work, smart dust
networks haven’t reached their
promise as a technology that will
revolutionize medicine, security,
space explorationandmore.
At least not yet. Efforts to develop
smart dust might be nearing
the reality stage. Big outfits such
as Emerson ElectricEMR, General
ElectricGE and Cargill are ramping
up interest in the technology.
Tech firms like Cisco SystemsCSCO
are funding smart dust ventures.
IBMIBM is tinkering with new
smart dust designs.
And first-generation smart dust
products are hitting the market.
The tiny sensors are being
tapped to monitor building con-
SEE SMART DUST ON A5s



trols, pipelines, factory equipment
and drug-making processes, says
Kris Pister, founder and chief technology
officer of privately held
Dust Networks, which makes
smart dust monitoring systems.
He says the fact that nodes of
smart dust sensors can “talk” to
each other through a mesh of wireless
radio signalsmakesthe technology
a reliable way to track different
industrial systems.
“Today at a paper mill or a chemical
plant or oil refinery, they have
sensors everywhere, such as on the
tubes to measure flow rates or pressure
in the valves,” Pister said. “All
of that gets wired back to a central
control computer.”
Smart dust is potentially revolutionary
because the sensors are
small enough to be put anywhere
andworkwirelessly, sharing data.
How Dust Works
Smart dust is based on microelectromechanical
systems, or MEMs.
Thesetinycomputerchipscanmeasure
temperatures, vibrations or
surface pressures. Smart sensors
relay signals back to a command
computer, which then compiles the
data to give feedback to plant managers.
Or the results could trigger
anautomaticresponse,suchas turning
down a building’s temperature
or reducing the flow of oil.
Such wireless tracking sensors are
cheap. They cost just tens of dollars
each, not the tens of thousands for
comparable wired systems that
often involve digging trenches and
building outdoor conduits, Pister
says.
Pister coined the term “smart
dust”asaresearcherat the University
of California, Berkeley, in the
’90s.Hesees a vital smart dust market
rising in thecomingdecade.
Industrial automation and factory
uses are already taking off, Pister
says. Another hot area, he says, is
monitoring energy use in buildings.
Dust Networks isn’t alone. One
rival is privately held Crossbow
TechnologyofSan Jose, Calif.
Global sales of smart dust are expected
to top $1 billion in 2012, says
ARCAdvisory Group, upfrom$344
million this year.
Sales of smart dust systems are
startingtosnowballamongindustrial
clients, says Peter Zornio, chief
strategic officer for the Emerson
Process Management unit of Emerson
Electric. Zornio says smart
dustnetworks are “the No.1 growth
thrust” for his $6.7 billion unit,
whichis Emerson’s largest division.
He foresees $500 million in annual
revenue from smart dust for his
firm within five years, compared
with “immaterial” sales today.
Manufacturing plants are adding
wireless smart dust nodes in places
where it’s too costly to install wired
sensors, Zornio says.
“This trend won’t replace something
else that we’re selling, it will
just grow the market with new
sales,” he said. “That’s why we’re
super excited about it.”
Smart dust systems are catching
on with large process manufacturers
such as refineries, chemical
plants, breweries and packaged
foodmakers, saysARCAdvisory analyst
Harry Forbes. But he expects
it will take five to 10 years for most
industrial sensors to use wireless
connections, not the standard
wired ones. That advance will let
users monitor systems where wires
arenowtoo costly or cumbersome.
“People see all kinds of potential
value in trying new applications,
but in many cases the wireless sensor
technology is not quite mature
enoughyet,” Forbes said.
Most smart dust sensors today are
roughly the size of sugar cubes, not
dust. But in some cases they can be
mademuchsmaller, Pister says.
“In the mid-1990s, the thinking
was that someday we would make
this technology as small as a speck
of dust,” he said. “So far, we’ve gotten
itdownto a grain of rice.”
Smart Help When Parking
Dust Networks customer Streetline
Inc. has designed smart parking
systems for the cities of San
Francisco and Los Angeles. The
firm embeds sensors right onto the
surfaces of parking spaces.
Drivers with passwords can activate
a dashboard system to find the
nearest open parking spot. Traffic
managers can use it to monitor, and
thus improve, traffic flows and to
boost revenue from parking meters
by, for example, letting the managersknowwhena
meter has expired.
Cisco is building wireless sensor
networks for gas producers, mining
firms and other clients. It’s teamed
up with Dust Networks on a product
called the Secure Wireless Plant
solution, which helps companies
monitor their production processes.
The growth of wireless smart dust
networks, however, depends largely
on the approval of more industry
standards. When that happens,
makers will be able to sync up various
sensors to a range of wireless
networksand software programs.
Global standards bodies are debating
such standards. Recent approval
of thenewWirelessHARTprotocol
is opening the door for more industrial
deployments, Pister says.
As for privacy concerns, Pister
says smart dust networks are designed
with strong encryption and
other security measures. “You’re
not going to have people who are
able to steal your information withoutyouknowingabout
it,” hesaid.
Smartdusthasa host of othermedical,
military andsecurity uses.
Picture cancer cells in the human
body glowing like Christmas lights.
Thelight comes from minute bits of
siliconlike material embedded in
the cells, making their nuclei and
other parts stand out so they can be
studied.
Researchers dub these types of
light-up materials “quantum dots.”
Evident Technologies, a privately
held firm based in Troy, N.Y., already
makes the dots for thousands
of clients. They range from General
Dynamics and Sumitomo Electric
to small medical firms. Most
buy the products in small batches
forusein largertechproducts orsystems.
Thedots, also knownas nanocrystals,
aresemiconductorsafewmolecules
wide. They can emit light or
manifest various electronic properties.
That is, the dots can attract or
repel. This makes it possible someday
to have them work like robots
in the blood stream.
“Dots are useful anywhere you
can use a semiconductor,” said Evident
Chief Executive Clint Ballinger,
who says his firm does about
$4 million in annual sales. Being
crystals, Ballinger says dots can be
grown in solution-filled vats, a ton
at a time.
Dots come in various sizes but are
usually20 to80atoms wide.
They can be used as indicator
lights — injected into, say, a cancer
cell tissue so that doctors and researchers
can “track” the cancer.
They also in theory can be used to
“tag” and then track intruders in
militaryandsecurity situations.
Evident also sells dots as lightemitting
diodes, or LEDs, for use in
Christmas lights.
Researchers at the University of
California, San Diego, have developeddust-
size silicon chips that detect
biological and chemical agents.
Those include substances that terrorists
might dissolve in drinking
water or spray in the atmosphere to
poison the water or air.
Michael Sailor, a professor of
chemistry and biochemistry at
UCSD, says his team is merging the
tiny sensors with wireless remote
sensing systems. He says the particles
can be used to deliver drugs to
the eye as treatment for retina degeneration.
“The particles have been tested in
live rabbits for this application, and
we are pushing toward clinical applications,”
Sailor said via e-mail.
There’s speculation that U.S. forces
are tapping smart dust for military
purposes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon is mum on the
subject.Somemilitary watchers believe
the technology is being used to
track terrorist suspects so that they
can be killed by U.S. warplanes or
unmannedaerial vehicles.
Tuesday: The future of smart dust,
IBM’s sensor efforts and aQ&Awith
the head of the Foresight Nanotech
Institute.t


BY J . BONASIA
AND DOUG TSURUOKA
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Imagine a cloud of sensors, each
the size of a grain of sand, blown
aloftbyhurricanewindsandrelaying
data on the storm to weather
stations below. Or picture tiny robotic
chips drifting through a
human artery to locate, and eradicate,
a hidden clot.
While the above advances are
chips, or even miniature robots.
The smart dust detects data about
light, temperatures or vibrations
and transmits that data to larger
computersystems.
Researchers hope to shrink
these devices to the size of a speck
of dust via nanotechnology — the
science of building molecule-size
electronic devices. Some scientists
see smart dust as quite possibly
a game-changing technology.
“Smart dust will be one of the
central industries of tomorrow,”
futurist Alvin Toffler told IBD.
(SeeQ&Aon A5.)
That’s the future.
The reality is that after more
develop
smart dust might be nearing
the reality stage. Big outfits
as Emerson ElectricEMR, General
ElectricGE and Cargill are ramping
up interest in the technology.
Tech firms like Cisco SystemsCSCO
are funding smart dust ventures.
IBMIBM is tinkering with
smart dust designs.
And first-generation smart
products are hitting the market.
The tiny sensors are being
tapped to monitor building
SEE SMART DUST ON A5
Artist’s concept of nanorobots in
a bloodstream, with cells. Newscom
First Of Two Partse


Smart Dust May Revolutionize Health Care
Tiny robots becoming
a reality that presents
Amex Tables ...............B9 futuristic possibilities

Second Of Two Parts

BY DOUG TSURUOKA
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Experts say smart dust’s future,
despite challenges, glitters with
nearly limitless possibilities.
SomeBritish scientists say smart
dust could be used by space
probes to explore other planets.
Swarms of tiny chips, for example,
couldbereleased intotheMartian
atmosphere to do chemical
analyses.
Some have darker visions. Author
Michael Crichton’s 2002
novel “Prey” imagines clouds of
nanorobots spying on and attacking
people.
Futurist Alvin Toffler envisions
smart dust helping to detect
changes in the home and environment.
But both Toffler and Christine
Peterson, president of the Foresight
Nanotech Institute inMenlo
Park, Calif., see downsides. They
say these tiny nanoparticles can
be used to invade privacy or exploited
by criminals. (See Q&A,
Page A4.)
Mark Ratner, a professor of
chemistry at Northwestern University,
says smart dust will spark
major shifts in how drugs are delivered
to parts of the human
body.
Hesays drugscanbe enclosed inside
a tiny nanoparticle with a
polymer skin. Thousands of such
nanoparticlescouldthenbeinjected
in the right part of the body
with maximum effect. If the drug
were a chemotherapy agent, for
example, it could reach a tumor
without losing any of its potency
through digestion.
“It’s better than swallowing a
drug,” said Ratner, a well-known
nanotechresearch pioneer.
But Ratner says smart dust and
other nanotech devices face plenty
of legal scrutiny before they can
be used inhumans.
He says the Food and Drug Administration
and other agencies
must issue approvals for tests and
treatments on humans involving
smart dust.
Thatcould take years.
In the meantime, researchers
are using smart dust to experimentonlaboratory
animals.
“The joke is that (nanotech) can
do a lot for you if you’re a mouse
with Parkinson’s,” Ratner said.
Some researchers caution that
smart dust could have unknown
side effectsandmustbethoroughly
tested before beingusedinmedicine.
Ted Schettler, science director
at the nonprofit Science and Environmental
Health Network, says
the risk to the human body from
smart dust depends on its size and
hazardous properties.
“Oneof the first questionswould
be, are (the small nano particles)
small enough to be inhaled and
penetrate deeply into the lungs,”
said Schettler, a physician. “If so,
then there is a need to look more
carefully into (smart dust’s) toxicologic
properties.”
Smartdustcould also revolutionize
industrial coatings. Ratner
says researchers are looking at
ways to spray smart dust on metal
SEE SMART DUST ON A4
surfaces to stop corrosion. Such
coatings also could send signals to a
manufacturer, alerting it if a surface
isdamaged.
EvidentTechnologiesCEOClint
Ballinger says clothing could someday
bemadefrom smart dust.
Ballinger’s firm makes nanocrystalsdubbed“
quantumdots” that act
like tiny semiconductors.
He says “intelligent” fabric made
from the dots could form part of a
wearablecomputersystem.
So, for example, your jacket could
double as your laptop computer.
Ballinger says smart dust could
alsobeused in flexiblesemiconductor
films that convert heat from the
sun and other thermal sources into
electricity.
“It’s possible to have clothing
stitched with this flexible film,”
Ballinger said. The electricity
would power other gadgets attached
to the clothing.
Ballinger says all of this means the
sky’s the limit when it comes to
using various types of smart dust to
improvehumanlife.
“Thisstuff isgoing tobeusefulanywhere
you use a semiconductor,”
Ballinger said. “Ultimately, we
want to get into (making) printed
semiconductors,” ones that could
be used most anywhere, not just in
the typical devices.
“This would involve using millions
of these dots in ways that are
limited only by your imagination.”