On the Capacity of Point-to-Point and Multiple-Access Molecular Communications with Ligand-Receptors

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the capacity limits of bacterial molecular communication systems, comparing signaling strategies and receptor interactions, and providing bounds for different scenarios with and without environmental noise.

Contribution

It introduces capacity bounds for point-to-point and multi-access molecular communications considering various signaling and receptor scenarios, including receptor blocking effects.

Findings

Derived upper and lower capacity bounds for point-to-point communication.

Analyzed capacity trade-offs among different molecular signaling scenarios.

Provided inner bounds on capacity regions for multi-access molecular communications.

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the bacterial point-to-point and multiple-access molecular communications with ligand-receptors. For the point-to-point communication, we investigate common signaling methods, namely the Level Scenario (LS), which uses one type of a molecule with different concentration levels, and the Type Scenario (TS), which employs multiple types of molecules with a single concentration level. We investigate the trade-offs between the two scenarios from the capacity point of view. We derive an upper bound on the capacity using a Binomial Channel (BIC) model and the symmetrized Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence. A lower bound is also derived when the environment noise is negligible. For the TS, we also consider the effect of blocking of a receptor by a different molecule type. Then, we consider multiple-access communications, for which we investigate three scenarios based on molecule and receptor types, i.e., same types of molecules with Different Labeling and Same types of Receptors (DLSR), Different types of Molecules and Receptors (DMDR), and Same types of Molecules and Receptors (SMSR). We investigate the trade-offs among the three scenarios from the total capacity point of view. We derive some inner bounds on the capacity region of these scenarios when the environment noise is negligible.