A comprehensive survey of recent advancements in molecular communication

With much advancement in the field of nanotechnology, bioengineering and synthetic biology over the past decade, microscales and nanoscales devices are becoming a reality. Yet the problem of engineering a reliable communication system between tiny devices is still an open problem. At the same time, despite the prevalence of radio communication, there are still areas where traditional electromagnetic waves find it difficult or expensive to reach. Points of interest in industry, cities, and medical applications often lie in embedded and entrenched areas, accessible only by ventricles at scales too small for conventional radio waves and microwaves, or they are located in such a way that directional high frequency systems are ineffective. Inspired by nature, one solution to these problems is molecular communication (MC), where chemical signals are used to transfer information. Although biologists have studied MC for decades, it has only been researched for roughly 10 year from a communication engineering lens. Significant number of papers have been published to date, but owing to the need for interdisciplinary work, much of the results are preliminary. In this paper, the recent advancements in the field of MC engineering are highlighted. First, the biological, chemical, and physical processes used by an MC system are discussed. This includes different components of the MC transmitter and receiver, as well as the propagation and transport mechanisms. Then, a comprehensive survey of some of the recent works on MC through a communication engineering lens is provided. The paper ends with a technology readiness analysis of MC and future research directions

Duality between Coronavirus Transmission and Air-based Macroscopic Molecular Communication

This contribution exploits the duality between a viral infection process and macroscopic air-based molecular communication. Airborne aerosol and droplet transmission through human respiratory processes is modeled as an instance of a multiuser molecular communication scenario employing respiratory-event-driven molecular variable-concentration shift keying. Modeling is aided by experiments that are motivated by a macroscopic air-based molecular communication testbed. In artificially induced coughs, a saturated aqueous solution containing a fluorescent dye mixed with saliva is released by an adult test person. The emitted particles are made visible by means of optical detection exploiting the fluorescent dye. The number of particles recorded is significantly higher in test series without mouth and nose protection than in those with a wellfitting medical mask. A simulation tool for macroscopic molecular communication processes is extended and used for estimating the transmission of infectious aerosols in different environments. Towards this goal, parameters obtained through self experiments are taken. The work is inspired by the recent outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications for the special issue "Section II: Molecular Communications for Diagnostics and Therapeutic Development of Infectious Diseases

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

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

Fundamentals of Clustered Molecular Nanonetworks

We present a comprehensive approach to the modeling, performance analysis, and design of clustered molecular nanonetworks in which nano-machines of different clusters release an appropriate number of molecules to transmit their sensed information to their respective fusion centers. The fusion centers decode this information by counting the number of molecules received in the given time slot. Owing to the propagation properties of the biological media, this setup suffers from both inter- and intra-cluster interference that needs to be carefully modeled. To facilitate rigorous analysis, we first develop a novel spatial model for this setup by modeling nano-machines as a Poisson cluster process with the fusion centers forming its parent point process. For this setup, we first derive a new set of distance distributions in the three-dimensional space, resulting in a remarkably simple result for the special case of the Thomas cluster process. Using this, total interference from previous symbols and different clusters is characterized and its expected value and Laplace transform are obtained. The error probability of a simple detector suitable for biological applications is analyzed, and approximate and upper-bound results are provided. The impact of different parameters on the performance is also investigated.Comment: Accepted for publicatio

Conception et évaluation de nouvelles méthodes pour améliorer les performances des réseaux de nano-communication

Abstract : The field of nanotechnology has undergone very rapid and fascinating development in recent years. This rapid and impressive advance has led to new applications of nanotechnology in the biomedical and military industries, making it a key area of research in multidisciplinary fields. However, the individual processing capacity of nanodevices is very limited, hence the need to design nanonetworks that allow the nanodevices to share information and to cooperate with each other. There are two solutions to establish a nanocommunication system: either by adapting the classical electromagnetic communication to the requirements of nano scale, or by using biological nanosystems inspired by nature such as the molecular communication proposed in the literature. In this thesis, we are interested in the second solution, which is exploiting the potential of biological nanosystems used by nature since billions of years to design biocompatible nanonetworks that can be used inside the human body for medical applications. Nevertheless, the use of this new paradigm is not without challenges. The very low achievable throughput and the Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) are the most influential problems on the quality of molecular communication. The main objective of this thesis is to design and evaluate new methods inspired by nature in order to enhance the performance of nano-communication systems. To do this, the work is divided into three main parts. In the first part, we enhance the performance of molecular communication by proposing a new method that uses a photolysis-reaction instead of using enzyme to better attenuate ISI. We also propose an optimization of the receiver used in MIMO systems by judiciously choosing the parameters used in its design to reduce the influence of path loss on the quality of the system. The second part proposes a new wired nano-communication system based on self-assembled polymers that build an electrically conductive nanowire to connect the nanodevices to each other. The use of electrons as information carriers drastically increases the achievable throughput and reduces the delay. We study the dynamic process of self-assembly of the nanowire and we propose a bio-inspired receiver that detects the electrons sent through the conductive nanowire and converts them into a blue light. The third part applies the proposed wired nano-communication system to design an architecture ofWired Ad hoc NanoNETworks (WANNET) with a physical layer, Medium Acess Control (MAC) layer and application layer. We also calculate the maximum throughput and we evaluate the performance of the system.Le domaine des nanotechnologies a connu un développement très rapide et fascinant ces dernières années. Cette avancée rapide et impressionnante a conduit à de nouvelles applications dans les industries biomédicale et militaire, ce qui en fait un champ clé de recherche dans des domaines multidisciplinaires. Cependant, la capacité de traitement individuelle des nanodispositifs est très limitée, d'où la nécessité de concevoir des nanoréseaux qui permettent aux nanodispositifs de partager des informations et de coopérer entre eux. Il existe deux solutions pour mettre en place un système de nano-communication: soit en adaptant la communication électromagnétique classiques aux exigences de la nano échelle, soit en utilisant des nanosystèmes inspirés de la nature comme la communication moléculaire. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la deuxième solution, qui exploite le potentiel des nanosystèmes biologiques utilisés par la nature depuis des milliards d'années pour concevoir des nanoréseaux biocompatibles pouvant être utilisés à l'intérieur du corps humain pour des applications médicales. Néanmoins, l'utilisation de ce nouveau paradigme n'est pas sans défis. Le très faible débit réalisable et l'Interférence Entre Symboles (IES) sont les problèmes les plus influents sur la qualité de la communication moléculaire. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de concevoir et d'évaluer de nouvelles méthodes inspirées de la nature afin d'améliorer les performances des systèmes de nano-communication. Pour ce faire, le travail est divisé en trois parties principales. Dans la première partie, nous améliorons les performances de la communication moléculaire en proposant une nouvelle méthode qui utilise une réaction de photolyse pour mieux atténuer l'IES. Nous proposons également une optimisation du receveur utilisé dans les systèmes MIMO en choisissant judicieusement les paramètres utilisés dans sa conception pour réduire l'influence de l'atténuation de trajet sur la qualité du système. La deuxième partie propose un nouveau système de nano-communication filaire basé sur des polymères auto-assemblés qui construisent un nanofil électriquement conducteur pour connecter les nanodispositifs les uns aux autres. L'utilisation d'électrons comme supports d'informations augmente considérablement le débit réalisable et réduit le délai. Nous étudions le processus dynamique d'auto-assemblage du nanofil et nous proposons un receveur bio-inspiré qui détecte les électrons envoyés et les convertit en une lumière bleue. La troisième partie applique le système de nano-communication filaire proposé pour concevoir une architecture d'un nanoréseau ad hoc filaire (Wired Ad hoc NanoNETworks) WANNET avec une couche physique, une couche de contrôle d'accès moyen (Medium Access Control) MAC et une couche d'application. Nous calculons également le débit maximum et nous évaluons les performances du système

Transmitter and Receiver Architectures for Molecular Communications: A Survey on Physical Design with Modulation, Coding, and Detection Techniques

Inspired by nature, molecular communications (MC), i.e., the use of molecules to encode, transmit, and receive information, stands as the most promising communication paradigm to realize the nanonetworks. Even though there has been extensive theoretical research toward nanoscale MC, there are no examples of implemented nanoscale MC networks. The main reason for this lies in the peculiarities of nanoscale physics, challenges in nanoscale fabrication, and highly stochastic nature of the biochemical domain of envisioned nanonetwork applications. This mandates developing novel device architectures and communication methods compatible with MC constraints. To that end, various transmitter and receiver designs for MC have been proposed in the literature together with numerable modulation, coding, and detection techniques. However, these works fall into domains of a very wide spectrum of disciplines, including, but not limited to, information and communication theory, quantum physics, materials science, nanofabrication, physiology, and synthetic biology. Therefore, we believe it is imperative for the progress of the field that an organized exposition of cumulative knowledge on the subject matter can be compiled. Thus, to fill this gap, in this comprehensive survey, we review the existing literature on transmitter and receiver architectures toward realizing MC among nanomaterial-based nanomachines and/or biological entities and provide a complete overview of modulation, coding, and detection techniques employed for MC. Moreover, we identify the most significant shortcomings and challenges in all these research areas and propose potential solutions to overcome some of them.This work was supported in part by the European Research Council (ERC) Projects MINERVA under Grant ERC-2013-CoG #616922 and MINERGRACE under Grant ERC-2017-PoC #780645