Diffusion Based Molecular Communication with Limited Molecule Production Rate

TL;DR

This paper investigates how molecule production constraints at the transmitter influence the capacity of concentration-based molecular communication systems, deriving bounds for both memoryless and ISI-affected channels.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of molecular communication capacity considering limited molecule generation, connecting it with energy harvesting concepts and deriving bounds for different channel scenarios.

Findings

Capacity bounds for memoryless channels derived.

Lower bounds for channels with ISI computed.

Impact of molecule production constraints on communication capacity.

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of a transmitter's molecule generation process on the capacity of a concentration based Molecular Communication (MC) system. Constraints caused by the molecule generation process affect the availability of the molecules at the transmitter. The transmitter has a storage of molecules, and should decide whether to release or save the currently produced molecules. As a result, the MC system has conceptual connections with energy harvesting systems. In this paper, we consider two scenarios on the propagation channel. The first scenario assumes a channel with no Inter-symbol Interference (ISI), \emph{i.e.,} a memoryless channel. We derive bounds on the capacity of the MC system in this scenario. The second scenario assumes the MC network with ISI, in which the output of the channel depends on the history of released molecules in the previous time-slots. Based on the assumptions that either the transmitter or the receiver knows the channel statistics, we compute a lower bound on the channel capacity.