Channel Model of Molecular Communication via Diffusion in a Vessel-like Environment Considering a Partially Covering Receiver

By considering potential health problems that a fully covering receiver may cause in vessel-like environments, the implementation of a partially covering receiver is needed. To this end, distribution of hitting location of messenger molecules (MM) is analyzed within the context of molecular communication via diffusion with the aim of channel modeling. The distribution of these MMs for a fully covering receiver is analyzed in two parts: angular and radial dimensions. For the angular distribution analysis, the receiver is divided into 180 slices to analyze the mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation of these slices. For the axial distance distribution analysis, Kolmogorov- Smirnov test is applied for different significance levels. Also, two different implementations of the reflection from the vessel surface (i.e., rollback and elastic reflection) are compared and mathematical representation of elastic reflection is given. The results show that MMs have tendency to spread uniformly beyond a certain ratio of the distance to the vessel radius. By utilizing the uniformity, we propose a channel model for the partially covering receiver in vessel-like environments and validate the proposed model by simulations

A General Analytical Approximation to Impulse Response of 3-D Microfluidic Channels in Molecular Communication

In this paper, the impulse response for a 3-D microfluidic channel in the presence of Poiseuille flow is obtained by solving the diffusion equation in radial coordinates. Using the radial distribution, the axial distribution is then approximated accordingly. Since Poiseuille flow velocity changes with radial position, molecules have different axial properties for different radial distributions. We, therefore, present a piecewise function for the axial distribution of the molecules in the channel considering this radial distribution. Finally, we lay evidence for our theoretical derivations for impulse response of the microfluidic channel and radial distribution of molecules through comparing them using various Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: The manuscript is submitted to IEEE: Transactions on Nanobioscienc

Diffusive molecular communication in a biological spherical environment with partially absorbing boundary

Diffusive molecular communication (DMC) is envisioned as a promising approach to help realize healthcare applications within bounded biological environments. In this paper, a DMC system within a biological spherical environment (BSE) is considered, inspired by bounded biological sphere-like structures throughout the body. As a biological environment, it is assumed that the inner surface of the sphere’s boundary is fully covered by biological receptors that may irreversibly react with hitting molecules. Moreover, information molecules diffusing in the sphere may undergo a degradation reaction and be transformed to another molecule type. Concentration Green’s function (CGF) of diffusion inside this environment is analytically obtained in terms of a convergent infinite series. By employing the obtained CGF, the information channel between transmitter and transparent receiver of DMC in this environment is characterized. Interestingly, it is revealed that the information channel is reciprocal, i.e., interchanging the position of receiver and transmitter does not change the information channel. Results indicate that the conventional simplifying assumption that the environment is unbounded may lead to an inaccurate characterization in such biological environments

Transmitter localization in vessel-like diffusive channels using ring-shaped molecular receivers

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Molecular communication via diffusion in vessellike environment targets critical applications such as detection of abnormal and unhealthy cells. In this work, we derive the analytical formulation of the channel model for diffusion dominated movement, considering ring-shaped (i.e., patch) observing receivers and Poiseuille flow with the aim of localization of the transmitter cell. Then, we derive formulations using this channel model for two different application scenarios. We assume that the emission start time is known in the first scenario, and unknown in the second one. We successfully localize the transmitter cell using a single receiver for the first scenario, whereas two receivers are used to localize the transmitter cell in the second scenario. Lastly, the devised analytical framework is validated with simulations.Postprint (author's final draft

A Survey on Modulation Techniques in Molecular Communication via Diffusion

This survey paper focuses on modulation aspects of molecular communication, an emerging field focused on building biologically-inspired systems that embed data within chemical signals. The primary challenges in designing these systems are how to encode and modulate information onto chemical signals, and how to design a receiver that can detect and decode the information from the corrupted chemical signal observed at the destination. In this paper, we focus on modulation design for molecular communication via diffusion systems. In these systems, chemical signals are transported using diffusion, possibly assisted by flow, from the transmitter to the receiver. This tutorial presents recent advancements in modulation and demodulation schemes for molecular communication via diffusion. We compare five different modulation types: concentration-based, type-based, timing-based, spatial, and higher-order modulation techniques. The end-to-end system designs for each modulation scheme are presented. In addition, the key metrics used in the literature to evaluate the performance of these techniques are also presented. Finally, we provide a numerical bit error rate comparison of prominent modulation techniques using analytical models. We close the tutorial with a discussion of key open issues and future research directions for design of molecular communication via diffusion systems.Comment: Preprint of the accepted manuscript for publication in IEEE Surveys and Tutorial

Influence of Red Blood Cells on Channel Characterization in Cylindrical Vasculature

Molecular communication via diffusion (MCvD) expects Brownian motions of the information molecules to transmit information. However, the signal propagation largely depends on the geometric characteristics of the assumed flow model, i.e., the characteristics of the environment, design, and position of the transmitter and receiver, respectively. These characteristics are assumed to be lucid in many ways by either consideration of one-dimensional diffusion, unbounded environment, or constant drift. In reality, diffusion often occurs in blood-vessel-like channels. To this aim, we try to study the effect of the biological environment on channel performance. The Red-Blood Cells (RBCs) found in blood vessels enforces a higher concentration of molecules towards the vessel walls, leading to better reception. Therefore, in this paper we derive an analytical expression of Channel Impulse Response (CIR) for a dispersion-advection-based regime, contemplating the influence of RBCs in the model and considering a point source transmitter and a realistic design of the receiver

Cooperative molecular communication in drift-induced diffusive cylindrical channel

A cooperative molecular communication (CMC) system is considered inside a cylindrical-shaped channel where a few cooperative nodes (CNs) are intermediately placed between a transmitter (TX) and a fusion center (FC). The expressions for the maximum achievable rate and probability of error at the FC considering AND and OR rules are derived. Furthermore, the performance of the CMC system in a cylindrical channel is compared with the direct and CN-assisted systems. The CMC system with randomly-placed CNs is also analyzed and compared with the uniformly-placed CNs, and it is found that a lower probability of error is obtained in the case of uniform placement of CNs. Furthermore, the system performance as a function of radial displacement of TX and FC under constant flow is compared with that under laminar flow and a higher probability of error is observed under laminar flow. The increased probability of error under laminar flow occurs due to the fact that the drift velocity decreases towards the walls of the cylindrical channel. The analytical expressions are verified using Monte-Carlo simulations

Channel modeling for diffusive molecular communication - a tutorial review

Molecular communication (MC) is a new communication engineering paradigm where molecules are employed as information carriers. MC systems are expected to enable new revolutionary applications such as sensing of target substances in biotechnology, smart drug delivery in medicine, and monitoring of oil pipelines or chemical reactors in industrial settings. As for any other kind of communication, simple yet sufficiently accurate channel models are needed for the design, analysis, and efficient operation of MC systems. In this paper, we provide a tutorial review on mathematical channel modeling for diffusive MC systems. The considered end-to-end MC channel models incorporate the effects of the release mechanism, the MC environment, and the reception mechanism on the observed information molecules. Thereby, the various existing models for the different components of an MC system are presented under a common framework and the underlying biological, chemical, and physical phenomena are discussed. Deterministic models characterizing the expected number of molecules observed at the receiver and statistical models characterizing the actual number of observed molecules are developed. In addition, we provide channel models for timevarying MC systems with moving transmitters and receivers, which are relevant for advanced applications such as smart drug delivery with mobile nanomachines. For complex scenarios, where simple MC channel models cannot be obtained from first principles, we investigate simulation-driven and experiment-driven channel models. Finally, we provide a detailed discussion of potential challenges, open research problems, and future directions in channel modeling for diffusive MC systems

Channel Modeling for Diffusive Molecular Communication - A Tutorial Review

Molecular communication (MC) is a new communication engineering paradigm where molecules are employed as information carriers. MC systems are expected to enable new revolutionary applications such as sensing of target substances in biotechnology, smart drug delivery in medicine, and monitoring of oil pipelines or chemical reactors in industrial settings. As for any other kind of communication, simple yet sufficiently accurate channel models are needed for the design, analysis, and efficient operation of MC systems. In this paper, we provide a tutorial review on mathematical channel modeling for diffusive MC systems. The considered end-to-end MC channel models incorporate the effects of the release mechanism, the MC environment, and the reception mechanism on the observed information molecules. Thereby, the various existing models for the different components of an MC system are presented under a common framework and the underlying biological, chemical, and physical phenomena are discussed. Deterministic models characterizing the expected number of molecules observed at the receiver and statistical models characterizing the actual number of observed molecules are developed. In addition, we provide channel models for time-varying MC systems with moving transmitters and receivers, which are relevant for advanced applications such as smart drug delivery with mobile nanomachines. For complex scenarios, where simple MC channel models cannot be obtained from first principles, we investigate simulation-driven and experimentally-driven channel models. Finally, we provide a detailed discussion of potential challenges, open research problems, and future directions in channel modeling for diffusive MC systems.Comment: 40 pages; 23 figures, 2 tables; this paper is submitted to the Proceedings of IEE