TY - JOUR
T1 - Chemical Reactions-Based Detection Mechanism for Molecular Communications
AU - Cao, Trang Ngoc
AU - Jamali, Vahid
AU - Wicke, Wayan
AU - Zlatanov, Nikola
AU - Yeoh, Phee Lep
AU - Evans, Jamie
AU - Schober, Robert
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project under Grant DP180101205. The work of Vahid Jamali was supported by the LOEWE Initiative Hesse, Germany, within the emergenCITY Center. The work of Robert Schober was supported in part by the German Science Foundation (DFG) under Grant SCHO 831/14-1, and in part by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant MAMOKO (16KIS0913K).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - In molecular communications, the direct detection of signaling molecules may be challenging due to a lack of suitable sensors and interference from co-existing substances in the environment. Motivated by research in molecular biology, we investigate an indirect detection mechanism using chemical reactions between the signaling molecules and a molecular probe to produce an easy-to-measure product at the receiver. We consider two implementations of the proposed detection mechanism, i.e., unrestricted probe movement and probes restricted to a volume around the receiver. In general, the resulting reaction-diffusion equations that describe the concentrations of the reactant and product molecules in the system are non-linear and coupled, and cannot be solved in closed form. To evaluate these molecule concentrations, we develop an efficient iterative algorithm by discretizing the time variable and solving for the space variables of the concentration equations in each time step. In the special case when the concentration of the unrestricted probes is high and not significantly changed by the chemical reaction, we obtain insightful closed-form solutions. Our results show that the concentrations of the product molecules and the signalling molecules have a similar characteristic over time, i.e., a single peak and a long tail. We highlight that by carefully choosing the molecular probe and optimizing the decision threshold, the BER can be improved significantly such that a direct detection system is outperformed. Moreover, when the molecular probes are kept in a small volume around the receiver, fewer resources are needed to achieve a lower BER and/or a higher data rate compared to the case of unrestricted molecular probes.
AB - In molecular communications, the direct detection of signaling molecules may be challenging due to a lack of suitable sensors and interference from co-existing substances in the environment. Motivated by research in molecular biology, we investigate an indirect detection mechanism using chemical reactions between the signaling molecules and a molecular probe to produce an easy-to-measure product at the receiver. We consider two implementations of the proposed detection mechanism, i.e., unrestricted probe movement and probes restricted to a volume around the receiver. In general, the resulting reaction-diffusion equations that describe the concentrations of the reactant and product molecules in the system are non-linear and coupled, and cannot be solved in closed form. To evaluate these molecule concentrations, we develop an efficient iterative algorithm by discretizing the time variable and solving for the space variables of the concentration equations in each time step. In the special case when the concentration of the unrestricted probes is high and not significantly changed by the chemical reaction, we obtain insightful closed-form solutions. Our results show that the concentrations of the product molecules and the signalling molecules have a similar characteristic over time, i.e., a single peak and a long tail. We highlight that by carefully choosing the molecular probe and optimizing the decision threshold, the BER can be improved significantly such that a direct detection system is outperformed. Moreover, when the molecular probes are kept in a small volume around the receiver, fewer resources are needed to achieve a lower BER and/or a higher data rate compared to the case of unrestricted molecular probes.
KW - chemical reactions
KW - detection
KW - Molecular communication
KW - molecular probe
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149398473&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TMBMC.2023.3244649
DO - 10.1109/TMBMC.2023.3244649
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85149398473
SN - 2332-7804
VL - 9
SP - 49
EP - 62
JO - IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications
JF - IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications
IS - 1
ER -