Active Versus Passive: Receiver Model Transforms for Diffusive Molecular Communication

TL;DR

This paper compares active and passive receiver models in diffusive molecular communication, deriving transforms to relate their signals and demonstrating that passive models can be more efficient for simulations.

Contribution

It introduces analytical transforms between active and passive receiver signals in molecular communication, enabling more efficient simulation methods.

Findings

Transform functions have constant scaling factors at long times.

Passive receiver simulations can be more efficient and accurate.

Models are unified for unbounded diffusion with spherical receivers.

Abstract

This paper presents an analytical comparison of active and passive receiver models in diffusive molecular communication. In the active model, molecules are absorbed when they collide with the receiver surface. In the passive model, the receiver is a virtual boundary that does not affect molecule behavior. Two approaches are presented to derive transforms between the receiver signals. As an example, two models for an unbounded diffusion-only molecular communication system with a spherical receiver are unified. As time increases in the three-dimensional system, the transform functions have constant scaling factors, such that the receiver models are effectively equivalent. Methods are presented to enable the transformation of stochastic simulations, which are used to verify the transforms and demonstrate that transforming the simulation of a passive receiver can be more efficient and more accurate than the direct simulation of an absorbing receiver.