Abstract:In this paper, we study DNA-based molecular communication with microarray-style reception under reversible hybridization, where the bound-state observation exhibits both inter-symbol interference and colored counting noise. To capture these effects in a communication-oriented form, we develop a Markov state-space framework based on a voxelized reaction--diffusion model, in which a block-structured transition matrix describes molecular transport and binding/unbinding dynamics. For the microarray specialization, this representation yields the channel impulse response, the equilibrium gain, and a settling-time-based characterization of the effective channel memory. Building on the resulting symbol-rate observation model for on--off keying, we derive a grouped-binomial counting model and obtain a closed-form expression for the covariance of the counting noise. Based on these statistics, we further develop a differential-threshold detector and a finite-memory decision-feedback equalizer. Numerical results validate the theoretical correlation behavior and show that the relative performance of the proposed receivers depends strongly on the channel-memory regime.
Abstract:This paper studies microfluidic molecular communication receivers with finite-capacity Langmuir adsorption driven by an effective surface concentration. In the reaction-limited regime, we derive a closed-form single-pulse response kernel and a symbol-rate recursion for on-off keying that explicitly exposes channel memory and inter-symbol interference. We further develop short-pulse and long-pulse approximations, revealing an interference asymmetry in the long-pulse regime due to saturation. To account for stochasticity, we adopt a finite-receptor binomial counting model, employ pulse-end sampling, and propose a low-complexity midpoint-threshold detector that reduces to a fixed threshold when interference is negligible. Numerical results corroborate the proposed characterization and quantify detection performance versus pulse and symbol durations.




Abstract:Molecular communication via diffusion (MCvD) is considered as one of the most feasible communication paradigms for nanonetworks, especially for bio-nanonetworks which are usually in water-rich biological environments. Two effects that deteriorates the signal in MCvD are noise and inter-symbol interference (ISI). The expected channel impulse response of MCvD has a long and slow attenuating tail due to molecular diffusion which causes ISI and further limits the slow data rate of MCvD. The extent that ISI and noise are suppressed in an MCvD system determines its effectiveness, especially at a high data rate. Although ISI-suppression approaches have been investigated, most of them are addressed as non-essential parts in other topics, such as signal detection or modulation. Furthermore, most of the state-of-the-art ISI-suppression approaches are performed by subtracting the estimated ISI from the total signal. In this work, we investigate ISI-suppression from a new perspective of filters to filter ISI out without any ISI estimation. The principles for a good design of ISI-suppression filters in MCvD are investigated. Based on the principles, an ISI-suppression filter with good anti-noise capability and an associated signal detection scheme is proposed for MCvD scenarios with both ISI and noise. We compare the proposed scheme with the state-of-the-art ISI-suppression approaches. The result manifests that the proposed ISI-suppression scheme could recover signals deteriorated severely by both ISI and noise, which could not be effectively detected by the state-of-the-art ISI-suppression approaches.