Improving Receiver Performance of Diffusive Molecular Communication with Enzymes

TL;DR

This paper explores how enzymes can be used in diffusive molecular communication systems to reduce intersymbol interference, deriving bounds and detection schemes that improve communication reliability.

Contribution

It introduces a lower bound on molecule detection, a simple binary detection scheme, and analyzes enzyme effects on error probability in molecular communication.

Findings

Enzymes significantly reduce intersymbol interference.

The proposed detection scheme improves bit error rate.

Analytical expressions match simulation results.

Abstract

This paper studies the mitigation of intersymbol interference in a diffusive molecular communication system using enzymes that freely diffuse in the propagation environment. The enzymes form reaction intermediates with information molecules and then degrade them so that they cannot interfere with future transmissions. A lower bound expression on the expected number of molecules measured at the receiver is derived. A simple binary receiver detection scheme is proposed where the number of observed molecules is sampled at the time when the maximum number of molecules is expected. Insight is also provided into the selection of an appropriate bit interval. The expected bit error probability is derived as a function of the current and all previously transmitted bits. Simulation results show the accuracy of the bit error probability expression and the improvement in communication performance by having active enzymes present.