In early 2004 eight tiny sensors were dropped from a plane near a military base in California. After hitting the ground, the sensors—also known as smart dust sensors—organized themselves into a network and quickly detected a fleet of military vehicles on the ground. They determined the direction, speed and size of a series of military vehicles traveling along the road and later transmitted the data to a computer at a nearby base camp.
Smart dust sens6rs are minicomputers—as small as a grain of rice in some cases—that can monitor and evaluate their physical environment and can relay the information via wireless communication. They can monitor elements such as temperature, moisture, humidity, pressure, energy use, vibration, light, motion, radiation, gas, and chemicals. These devices will soon have many applications, such as use in emergency rescue.
Software has been developed to run these minicomputers. A key feature of the software is the ability of the sensors to automatically organize themselves into a communications network and talk to each other via wireless radio signals. If any one connection is interrupted, the sensors will self-correct and pass the information on to the next available sensor.
Each sensor has a chip that does the computing work—recording things like temperature and motion at its location. Each sensor also has a tiny radio transmitter that allows it to talk to other sensors within 100 feet or so. With a single network of 10,000 sensors—thought to be the biggest array (排列) of sensors currently possible—you could cover 9 square miles and get information about each point along the way. The data finally works its way to a base station that can send the information to a computer or to a wireless network.
The scientists who are working with this technology say smart dust sensors can be used to detect the location or movement of enemy troops in areas too dangerous or remote for soldiers to operate. Scattering hundreds of self-networking sensors from a manned or unmanned plane onto the battlefield, in theory, could produce critical information and lead to strategic advantage. Sensors could also be used to detect the presence of chemical weapons and could give troops the time needed to put on protective gear.
By "physical environment" (Line 2, Paragraph 2), the writer means such elements as ().
A. the position of military troops
B. the presence of minicomputers
C. the strength of radio signals
D. the amount of water vapor in the air
