La visión de la nanotecnología para las radiocomunicaciones en los próximos años. Una perspectiva desde la academia

In recent years, nanotechnology has marked a milestone in the communications evolution, which has allowed the development of new applications and standardization of new materials to a nanometer scale called nanomaterials. Some of them are the graphene and its derivatives as carbon nanotubes and some compounds as the metamaterials whose properties and characteristics of electronic and physical type are fully compatible, allowing easy merging with telecommunications. And it is precisely what is intended by this article: provide a perspective from the academy to identify some kinds of nanomaterials and we resolve some questions like ¿what kind of materials are? ¿what properties do it have? ¿what classification has it? ¿what are some of the most important applications in the field of telecommunications? and ¿what developments are there currently. Thus, we enter exploring the nanocommunications.En los últimos años, la nanotecnología ha marcado un hito en la evolución de las comunicaciones, lo que ha permitido el desarrollo de nuevas aplicaciones y la estandarización de nuevos materiales en una escala nanométrica llamada nanomateriales. Algunos de ellos son el grafeno y sus derivados como los nanotubos de carbono y algunos compuestos como los metamateriales cuyas propiedades y características de tipo electrónico y físico son totalmente compatibles, permitiendo una fusión fácil con las telecomunicaciones. Y es precisamente lo que se pretende mediante este artículo; proporcionar una perspectiva desde la academia para identificar algunos tipos de nanomateriales que nos planteamos algunas preguntas como ¿qué tipo de materiales son?, ¿qué propiedades tienen?, ¿qué clasificación poseen?, ¿cuáles son algunas de las aplicaciones más importantes en el campo de las telecomunicaciones?, y ¿qué desarrollos y aplicaciones hay actualmente? Así, entramos explorando las nanocomunicaciones. 

Directional Receivers for Diffusion-Based Molecular Communications

The particle motion in diffusion-based molecular communication systems is typically modeled by using Brownian processes. In particular, this model is used to characterize the propagation of signal molecules after their release from the transmitter. This motion cannot include directionality in the propagating signal and translates into omnidirectional broadcast communications. In order to make such molecular communications system suitable for supporting communications protocols at the molecular scales, we propose to improve the receiver capabilities by introducing a form of directionality while receiving biological signals. Inspired by the directionality introduced in electromagnetic communications by means of directional antennas, we designed a nanomachine receiver having directionality properties. Our aim is to increase the average concentration of signal molecules, also referred to as carriers, in the area around the receiver surface. In this way, it is possible to increase the signal strength at the receiver. For this purpose, we propose to use a purely reflecting shell to be placed at a configurable distance from the receiver surface. The shape of the shell can be modeled as either a spherical cap or a cylinder with an empty basis. The presence of this surface causes a number of signal molecules to remain trapped in a region close to the receiver surface for a sufficiently long time. In this way, the probability of assimilating additional carriers by the compliant receptors present on the receiver surface increases. By means of an extensive simulation campaign, we identified the most suitable configuration able to provide a significant advantage with respect to those not adopting the proposed solution. The resulting approach can be regarded as an enabler of protocols for diffusive molecular communications taking advantage of directionality properties at the receiver site. It can result in an increased communication range or in improved capabilities of discriminating signals of coexisting molecular communication systems