Theory and practice of molecular communication

这项提议涉及分子通信。分子通信是一项迅速崛起的技术，有着广泛的应用，包括纳米级的网络和恶劣环境中的通信。利用分子通信，发送器通过释放分子图案来编码信息，并使用布朗运动等物理原理将这些信息传递给接收器。例如，一个比特可以通过释放一个或多个可检测化合物的分子来发送，例如乙醇(代表1)，或者什么都不释放(代表0)，作为开关键控的一种形式。这种化合物可以通过自由扩散从一个发射器传播到另一个接收器，接收器上的乙醇探测器将测量分子到达的时间。在这个例子中，噪声采取分子的随机传播过程或探测器中的噪声的形式。在分子通信文献中已经提出并研究了许多其他调制技术。 在这个项目中，我们回答了以下研究问题： 1.什么是适合分子通信系统的信息论模型，相关的信息论能力是什么？ 2.我们能否获得对纳米生物系统的信息论理解？ 3.我们能否将低成本的“大尺度”分子通信试验台小型化，使其更接近纳米生物学应用所需的大小？ 4.我们能否通过构建示范系统来说明分子通信的实用价值？ 前两个问题本质上是理论问题，将扩展我们对分子通信最终极限的认识。对这些问题的回答将帮助我们了解分子通信有哪些应用是可能的，哪些是不可行的。此外，从信息论的角度理解纳米生物系统可能会让我们更好地理解自然纳米生物系统，如微生物。 最后两个问题本质上是实用的，将有助于我们将分子通信的理论知识在实践中实现。这些问题的答案将使我们更接近纳米医学的未来可能性，并将开辟新的应用领域(如基础设施监测)，这些领域是传统无线电通信难以解决的。

This proposal concerns molecular communication. Molecular communication is a rapidly emerging technique with numerous applications, including nanoscale networking and communication in harsh environments. Using molecular communication, the transmitter encodes messages by releasing patterns of molecules, and conveys those messages to the receiver using physical principles such as Brownian motion. For example, a bit could be sent by releasing one or more molecules of a detectable compound such as ethanol (representing 1), or releasing nothing (representing 0), as a form of on-off keying. The compound could propagate from transmitter to receiver using free diffusion, and an ethanol detector at the receiver would measure when the molecules arrive. Noise in this example takes the form of either the random propagation process of the molecules, or noise in the detector. Many other modulation techniques have been proposed and studied in the molecular communication literature. In this project we answer the following research questions: 1. What are appropriate information-theoretic models for molecular communication systems, and what are the associated information-theoretic capacities? 2. Can we obtain an information-theoretic understanding of nanobiological systems? 3. Can we miniaturize low-cost "macroscale" molecular communication testbeds, bringing them closer to the size needed for nanobiological applications? 4. Can we illustrate the practical value of molecular communication by constructing demonstration systems? The first two questions are theoretical in nature, and will extend our knowledge of the ultimate limits of molecular communication. Answers to these questions will help us to understand what kind of applications are possible with molecular communications, and what kind are infeasible. Moreover, understanding nanobiological systems from an information-theoretic perspective may give us greater understanding of natural nanobiological systems, such as microbes. The last two questions are practical in nature, and will help us bring our theoretical knowledge of molecular communication to realization in practice. Answers to these questions will bring us closer to the futuristic possibilities of nanomedicine, and will open up new application areas (such as infrastructure monitoring) that are difficult to solve with conventional radio communication.