On the Capacity of Diffusion-Based Molecular Timing Channels

TL;DR

This paper establishes capacity bounds for diffusion-based molecular timing channels, modeling the arrival time as a Lévý noise process, and provides tight bounds for finite propagation delays.

Contribution

It introduces the capacity limits for molecular timing channels and characterizes the noise as a Lévý distribution, deriving tight bounds for finite delays.

Findings

Capacity bounds for diffusion-based MT channels are derived.

The noise in the channel follows a Lévý distribution.

Bounds are shown to be tight for finite delays.

Abstract

This work introduces capacity limits for molecular timing (MT) channels, where information is modulated on the release timing of small information particles, and decoded from the time of arrival at the receiver. It is shown that the random time of arrival can be represented as an additive noise channel, and for the diffusion-based MT (DBMT) channel, this noise is distributed according to the L\'evy distribution. Lower and upper bounds on the capacity of the DBMT channel are derived for the case where the delay associated with the propagation of information particles in the channel is finite. These bounds are also shown to be tight.