Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize avionics by helping to cut aircraft fuel burn and improve safety, according to this article. “Smart dust”, or extremely small wireless sensors, could be embedded in or on components of airplanes, and could communicate from any part of an aircraft to back up avionic systems. An aircraft would be able to fly with greater safety and use less fuel. Dr. David Jacobson, emerging technologies director for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said, “The layered back-up will reduce the chances of sensor or software failures leading to a shutdown of flight-critical function, without adding weight.” Wireless systems could also result in the ability to monitor parts of an aircraft that are currently inaccessible to the current generation of wired systems. Jacobson said he also expects nanotechnology to fuel a revolution in the stealth performance of military aircraft, giving rise to materials and surfaces whose strength and electromagnetic wave absorption can be dynamically altered. “These will likely lead to the emergence of adaptable ‘radar cloaking’ of low-profile stealth fighters and bombers,” he added. “Nanotechnologies and surface treatments might well create new surfaces which, like a chameleon, change their patterns and reflective properties according to the background and incoming radar probing signals.”
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/06/08/357593/nanotechnology-means-a-future-of-smart-dust.html