An Energy conserving routing scheme for wireless body sensor nanonetwork communication

Current developments in nanotechnology make electromagnetic communication possible at the nanoscale for applications involving body sensor networks (BSNs). This specialized branch of wireless sensor networks, drawing attention from diverse fields, such as engineering, medicine, biology, physics, and computer science, has emerged as an important research area contributing to medical treatment, social welfare, and sports. The concept is based on the interaction of integrated nanoscale machines by means of wireless communications. One key hurdle for advancing nanocommunications is the lack of an apposite networking protocol to address the upcoming needs of the nanonetworks. Recently, some key challenges have been identified, such as nanonodes with extreme energy constraints, limited computational capabilities, terahertz frequency bands with limited transmission range, and so on, in designing protocols for wireless nanosensor networks. This work proposes an improved performance scheme of nanocommunication over terahertz bands for wireless BSNs making it suitable for smart e-health applications. The scheme contains - a new energy-efficient forwarding routine for electromagnetic communication in wireless nanonetworks consisting of hybrid clusters with centralized scheduling; a model designed for channel behavior taking into account the aggregated impact of molecular absorption, spreading loss, and shadowing; and an energy model for energy harvesting and consumption. The outage probability is derived for both single and multilinks and extended to determine the outage capacity. The outage probability for a multilink is derived using a cooperative fusion technique at a predefined fusion node. Simulated using a nano-sim simulator, performance of the proposed model has been evaluated for energy efficiency, outage capacity, and outage probability. The results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed scheme through maximized energy utilization in both single and multihop communications; multisensor fusion at the fusion node enhances the link quality of the transmission

Energy Efficient Event Localization and Classification for Nano IoT

Advancements in nanotechnology promises new capabilities for Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor extremely fine-grained events by deploying sensors as small as a few hundred nanometers. Researchers predict that such tiny sensors can transmit wireless data using graphene-based nano-antenna radiating in the terahertz band (0.1-10 THz). Powering such wireless communications with nanoscale energy supply, however, is a major challenge to overcome. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient event monitoring framework for nano IoT that enables nanosensors to update a remote base station about the location and type of the detected event using only a single short pulse. Nanosensors encode different events using different center frequencies with non overlapping half power bandwidth over the entire terahertz band. Using uniform linear array (ULA) antenna, the base station localizes the events by estimating the direction of arrival of the pulse and classifies them from the center frequency estimated by spectral centroid of the received signal. Simulation results confirm that, from a distance of 1 meter, a 6th derivative Gaussian pulse consuming only 1 atto Joule can achieve localization and classification accuracies of 1.58 degree and 98.8%, respectively.Comment: 6 pages, 18 Figures, accepted for publication in IEEE GLOBECOM Conference 201

Scalability of the channel capacity in graphene-enabled wireless communications to the nanoscale

Graphene is a promising material which has been proposed to build graphene plasmonic miniaturized antennas, or graphennas, which show excellent conditions for the propagation of Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) waves in the terahertz band. Due to their small size of just a few micrometers, graphennas allow the implementation of wireless communications among nanosystems, leading to a novel paradigm known as Graphene-enabled Wireless Communications (GWC). In this paper, an analytical framework is developed to evaluate how the channel capacity of a GWC system scales as its dimensions shrink. In particular, we study how the unique propagation of SPP waves in graphennas will impact the channel capacity. Next, we further compare these results with respect to the case when metallic antennas are used, in which these plasmonic effects do not appear. In addition, asymptotic expressions for the channel capacity are derived in the limit when the system dimensions tend to zero. In this scenario, necessary conditions to ensure the feasibility of GWC networks are found. Finally, using these conditions, new guidelines are derived to explore the scalability of various parameters, such as transmission range and transmitted power. These results may be helpful for designers of future GWC systems and networks.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

A comprehensive survey on hybrid communication in context of molecular communication and terahertz communication for body-centric nanonetworks

With the huge advancement of nanotechnology over the past years, the devices are shrinking into micro-scale, even nano-scale. Additionally, the Internet of nano-things (IoNTs) are generally regarded as the ultimate formation of the current sensor networks and the development of nanonetworks would be of great help to its fulfilment, which would be ubiquitous with numerous applications in all domains of life. However, the communication between the devices in such nanonetworks is still an open problem. Body-centric nanonetworks are believed to play an essential role in the practical application of IoNTs. BCNNs are also considered as domain specific like wireless sensor networks and always deployed on purpose to support a particular application. In these networks, electromagnetic and molecular communications are widely considered as two main promising paradigms and both follow their own development process. In this survey, the recent developments of these two paradigms are first illustrated in the aspects of applications, network structures, modulation techniques, coding techniques and security to then investigate the potential of hybrid communication paradigms. Meanwhile, the enabling technologies have been presented to apprehend the state-of-art with the discussion on the possibility of the hybrid technologies. Additionally, the inter-connectivity of electromagnetic and molecular body-centric nanonetworks is discussed. Afterwards, the related security issues of the proposed networks are discussed. Finally, the challenges and open research directions are presented

Modelling of the Terahertz Communication Channel for In-vivo Nano-networks in the Presence of Noise

This paper focuses on the modelling of communication channel noise inside human tissues at the THz band (0.1-10THz). A novel model is put forward based on the study of the physical mechanism of the channel noise in the medium, which takes into account both the radiation of the medium and the molecular absorption from the transmitted signal. The derivation and the general concepts of the noise modelling is detailed in the paper. The results show that the channel noise power spectral density at the scale of several micrometres is at acceptable levels and the value tends to decrease with the increase of both distance and frequency. In addition, the channel noise is also related to the composition of the human tissues, with the result of higher channel noise in tissues with higher water concentration. The conclusion drawn from the conducted study and analysis paves the way for more comprehensive characterisation of the electromagnetic channel within in-vivo nano-networks

A nanoscale communication network scheme and energy model for a human hand scenario

Real-time monitoring of medical test parameters as well as biological and chemical substances inside the human body is an aspiration which might facilitate the control of pathologies and would ensure better effectiveness in diagnostics and treatments. Future Body Area NanoNetworks (BANN) represent an ongoing effort to complement these initiatives, although due to its early stage of development, further research is required. This paper contributes with a hierarchical BANN architecture consisting of two types of nanodevices, namely, nanonodes and a nanorouter, which are conceptually designed using technologically available electronic components. A straightforward communication scheme operating at the THz band for the exchange of information among nanodevices is also proposed. Communications are conducted in a human hand scenario since, unlike other parts of the human body, the negative impact of path loss and molecular absorption noise on the propagation of electromagnetic waves in biological tissues is mitigated. However, data transmission is restricted by the tiny size of nanodevices and their extremely limited energy storing capability. To overcome this concern, nanodevices must be powered through the bloodstream and external ultrasound energy harvesting sources. Under these conditions, the necessary energy and its management have been thoroughly examined and assessed. The results obtained reveal the outstanding ability of nanonodes to recharge, thus enabling each pair of nanonode–nanorouter to communicate every 52 min. This apparently long period is compensated by the considerably high number of nanonodes in the network, which satisfies a quasi-constant monitoring of medical parameter readings.This work has been supported by the project AIM, ref. TEC2016-76465-C2-1-R (AEI/FEDER, UE). Sebastian Canovas-Carrasco also thanks the Spanish MECD for an FPU (ref. FPU16/03530) pre-doctoral fellowship

Nano-Communication for Biomedical Applications: A Review on the State-of-the-Art From Physical Layers to Novel Networking Concepts

We review EM modeling of the human body, which is essential for in vivo wireless communication channel characterization; discuss EM wave propagation through human tissues; present the choice of operational frequencies based on current standards and examine their effects on communication system performance; discuss the challenges of in vivo antenna design, as the antenna is generally considered to be an integral part of the in vivo channel; review the propagation models for the in vivo wireless communication channel and discuss the main differences relative to the ex vivo channel; and address several open research problems and future research directions

A Reliable Multipath Routing Protocol Based on Link Stability

Wireless NanoSensor Network (WNSN) is a new type of sensor network with broad application prospects. In view of the limited energy of nanonodes and unstable links in WNSNs, we propose a reliable multi-path routing based on link stability (RMRLS). RMRLS selects the optimal path which perfects best in the link stability evaluation model, and then selects an alternative route by the routing similarity judgment model. RMRLS uses tew paths to cope with changes in the network topology. The simulation shows that the RMRLS protocol has advantages in data packet transmission success rate and average throughput, which can improve the stability and reliability of the network