Energy Efficient Transmitter Creation by Consuming Free Energy in Molecular Communication

TL;DR

This paper proposes an energy-efficient molecular communication transmitter that harvests environmental molecules, separates them using energy, and optimizes transfer strategies to improve communication fidelity and efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a novel transmitter design that harvests and separates molecules with energy-efficient transfer strategies, enhancing molecular communication performance.

Findings

Transferring higher concentration molecules improves performance.

Using fewer molecules per transfer increases efficiency.

Energy-aware transfer strategies optimize molecular communication.

Abstract

Information molecules play a crucial role in molecular communication (MC), acting as carriers for information transfer. A common approach to get information molecules in MC involves harvesting them from the environment; however, the harvested molecules are often a mixture of various environmental molecules, and the initial concentration ratios in the reservoirs are identical, which hampers high-fidelity transmission techniques such as molecular shift keying (MoSK). This paper presents a transmitter design that harvests molecules from the surrounding environment and stores them in two reservoirs. To separate the mixed molecules, energy is consumed to transfer them between reservoirs. Given limited energy resources, this work explores energy-efficient strategies to optimize transmitter performance. Through theoretical analysis and simulations, we investigate different methods for moving molecules between reservoirs. The results demonstrate that transferring higher initial concentration molecules enhances transmitter performance, while using fewer molecules per transfer further improves efficiency. These findings provide valuable insights for optimizing MC systems through energy-efficient molecule transfer techniques.