Since we first reported on Smart Dust back in May of 2001, lots
of progress has been made in two directions. The smallest motes
are still steadily shrinking towards the size of dust.
Meanwhile, the big motes are getting smarter and evolving into
COTS Dust and mote-based mobile sensor networks. Robomote is a
mote developed by the USC Center for Robotics and Embedded
Systems. Robomote is a macro mote designed to act as part of a
mobile sensor network made up of hundreds or thousands of
identical robots that would monitor the environment. A recently
published a working paper (PDF format) from CRES describes the
AVR-based Robomote and its potential applications in detail.
Many of the design features of the Robomote could be applied to
any small, mobile robot.