Reading Articles with Our Noses: A Bio-Inspired Solution for Synthetic Molecular Communications
Final Report Abstract
Molecular communication (MC) is a new paradigm in communication engineering where molecules are employed as information carriers. MC systems are expected to enable new revolutionary applications such as smart drug delivery in medicine and monitoring of oil pipelines or chemical reactors in industrial settings. However, the design of synthetic MC systems faces challenges that are not commonly encountered in the design of conventional communication systems. For instance, analogous to using multiple frequencies in conventional communication systems, it is also beneficial to use a large number of different types of signaling molecules in MC systems in order to reduce the inter-symbol interference and enhance the data rate. However, the implementation of these systems is impractical with state-of-the-art solutions for synthetic MC systems which assume a Dedicated Receptor for Each Molecule type, i.e., DREAM systems. Fortunately, nature has developed an evolutionary solution to this challenge which can be found in e.g. mammalian olfactory systems. For example, humans are able to discriminate many thousands of chemicals by using only a few hundred types of receptors on their inner nose surface. The main objective of this project was to investigate the potential benefits of exploiting the properties of natural olfaction for the design of synthetic MC systems. To do so, in this project, we studied modeling, design, and performance evaluation of olfactory-inspired synthetic MC systems. In particular, in the proposed MC system, mixtures of molecules are used as information carriers by the transmitters which are detected by an array of cross-reactive receptors at a receiver. We first developed an end-to-end MC channel model that accounts for the key properties of olfaction. Subsequently, we designed schemes for modulation and detection. Given a set of signaling molecule types, we developed algorithms that construct favorable molecule mixtures for communication. Moreover, exploiting compressive sensing theory, we developed various recovery problems that exploit the knowledge of the information carrying molecule mixture alphabet and the structure of the cross-reactive receptor array in order to efficiently identify the transmitted molecule mixtures. Finally, the performance of the proposed MC system designs was evaluated by a comprehensive set of computer-based simulation experiments and compared against the performance existing benchmarks from the literature. In summary, the project outcomes contribute to the understanding of olfactory-based MCs from a communication engineering perspective. Moreover, the potential benefits of the solutions developed by evolution in natural olfaction were explored for improving synthetic MC systems in the course of the project. The obtained results are expected to enable novel directions in the open quest for the design of synthetic MC systems.
Publications
- “Olfaction-inspired MCs: Molecule Mixture Shift Keying and Cross-Reactive Receptor Arrays,“ to IEEE Transactions on Communications, 2023
V. Jamali, H. M. Loos, A. Buettner, R. Schober, and H. V. Poor
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1109/TCOMM.2023.3242379)
