Throughput and efficiency of molecular communication between nanomachines

• Published in: 2012 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) pp. 704 - 708
• Main Authors: Nakano, T., Okaie, Y., Vasilakos, A. V.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.04.2012
• Subjects: Conferences; Receivers
• ISBN: 9781467304368; 1467304360
• ISSN: 1525-3511; 1558-2612
• DOI: 10.1109/WCNC.2012.6214461

This paper focuses on throughput and efficiency of molecular communication between a pair of sender and receiver nanomachines. In the molecular communication considered in this paper, the sender transmits molecules at a fixed rate, the molecules propagate in the environment, and the receiver captures and processes the molecules following simple enzyme kinetics. We define throughput as the average number of molecules processed by the receiver per unit time, and efficiency as the throughput divided by the number of molecules transmitted by the sender per unit time. An upper bound on throughput and efficiency at steady-state are first derived. Simulation results are then provided to show that the throughput increases as the transmission rate increases and that the efficiency has an optimal transmission rate to achieve the maximum.