A Comprehensive Survey of Recent Advancements in Molecular Communication

Abstract

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.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorial

Eavesdropper Localization in Random Walk Channels

“…It has been shown that the binomial distributed noise can be approximated to a Normal distribution [2]. We add the noise to the molecules counted by the sensor and the results in Fig.…”

“…INTRODUCTION Molecular communications has gained significant research attention in recent years, providing an alternative and attractive way to communicate at small-scales and in biological environments [1], [2]. Its applications include targeted drug delivery [1], [3], [4] and industrial monitoring [2].…”

A vertical channel model of molecular communication and its test-bed

“…Due to the flow may affect the gravity, we denote the final result of gravity as e, the concentration of the molecules which denotes f (t). f (t) can be regarded as the total variation of the concentration at different time t, then we get Equation (3).…”

“…However, still there are many applications which are not convenient or appropriate for these technologies. For instance, the use of wireless communication inside networks of tunnels, pipelines, or salt water environment, etc., can be very inefficient [2,3]. As another example, with the dimensions of the transmitter and receiver become smaller and smaller, electromagnetic communication is extremely challenging due to constrains such as the ratio of the antenna size to the wavelength of the electromagnetic signal [4].…”

Modelling of multilayer biological medium under molecular communication paradigm

“…It is highly appropriate for certain biomedical applications, where the use of electromagnetic (EM) waves is neither possible nor desirable [1]- [2]. In particular, the molecular communication via diffusion (MCvD) is a simple method, which does not require additional infrastructure or external energy.…”