These smart dust devices bear curious resemblance to devices discussed in Vernor Vinge’s novel, A Deepness In The Sky.
In “Deepness”, these devices are known as “localizers”, and with their limited distributed computation, surveillance, and movement abilities, they prove to be a cornerstone of space-faring civilization. With a cloud of localizers in a microgravity environment, construction becomes a matter of simplicity, as a single person can easily manage many independent objects at once. For more info, go buy the book. I liked it.