Molecular communication using magnetic nanoparticles

• Published in: 2018 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) pp. 1 - 6
• Main Authors: Wicke, Wayan, Ahmadzadeh, Arman, Jamali, Vahid, Schober, Robert, Unterweger, Harald, Alexiou, Christoph
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2018
• Subjects: Magnetic cores; Magnetic forces; Magnetic hysteresis; Magnetic levitation; Magnetic nanoparticles; Mathematical model; Saturation magnetization
• ISSN: 1558-2612
• DOI: 10.1109/WCNC.2018.8376970

In this paper, we propose to use magnetic nanoparticles as information carriers for molecular communication. This enables the use of an external magnetic field to guide information-carrying particles towards the receiver. We show that the particle movement can be mathematically modeled as diffusion with drift. Thereby, we reveal that the key parameters determining the magnetic force are particle size and magnetic field gradient. As an example, we consider magnetic nanoparticle based communication in a bounded two-dimensional environment. For this model, we derive an analytical expression for the channel impulse response subject to fluid flow and magnetic drift. Numerical results, obtained by particle-based simulation, validate the accuracy of the derived analytical expressions. Furthermore, adopting the symbol error rate as performance metric, we show that using magnetic nanoparticles facilitates reliable communication, even in the presence of fluid flow.