Transmission protocols for calcium-signaling-based molecular communications in deformable cellular tissue

Michael Taynnan Barros, Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, Brendan Jennings, Yevgeni Koucheryavy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Molecular communications is a new paradigm that enables nanomachines to communicate within a biological environment. One form of molecular communications is calcium (Ca2+) signaling, which occurs naturally in living biological cells. Ca2+ signaling enables cells in a tightly packed tissue structure to communicate at short ranges with neighboring cells. The achievable mutual information of Ca2+ signaling between tissue embedded nanomachines is investigated in this paper, focusing in particular on the impact that the deformation of the tissue structure has on the communication channel. Based on this analysis, a number of transmission protocols are proposed; nanomachines can utilize these to communicate using Ca2+ signaling. These protocols are static time-slot configuration, dynamic time-slot configuration, dynamic time-slot configuration with silent communication, and improved dynamic time-slot configuration with silent communication (IDTC-SC). The results of a simulation study show that IDTC-SC provides the maximum data rate when tissues experience frequent deformation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6809215
Pages (from-to)779-788
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology
Volume13
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Calcium signaling
  • deformable tissue
  • molecular communications
  • transmission protocols

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