Molecular Communication Using Dynamic Properties of Oscillating and Propagating Patterns in Concentration of Information Molecules

This paper explores the dynamic properties of oscillating and propagating patterns in concentration of the information molecule and proposes a new modulation scheme for molecular communication. In the proposed modulation scheme, information molecules transmitted from a sender bio-nanomachine propagate in the environment, chemically react with the molecules in the environment, change their concentration, and form an oscillating and propagating pattern in the environment. A sender bio-nanomachine modulates information onto the dynamic properties of the pattern, such as the amount of change in concentration of the information molecule and the time duration of one cycle of a periodic pattern in concentration of the information molecule. Receiver bio-nanomachines receive the oscillating and propagating pattern that the sender bio-nanomachine generates and detect its dynamic properties to demodulate information. This paper implements the proposed modulation scheme using Ca
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oscillation and propagation, a communication mechanism found in biological cells. It also demonstrates that the proposed modulation scheme allows information to be simultaneously modulated onto multiple dynamic properties of an oscillating and propagating pattern that a sender bio-nanomachine generates. The main contributions of this paper are to open a new research area of modulation schemes in molecular communication and to illustrate the possibility that biological cells use such modulation schemes for cell-to-cell communication.