In molecular communication via diffusion, information molecules diffusing in the environment are subject to Brownian motion. Due to probabilistic propagation, the arrival of the molecules at the receiver is spread in time, leading to the reception of some molecules belonging to the previous symbol(s) during the upcoming symbol duration. Known as inter-symbol interference (ISI), this problem has been extensively studied in the literature by applying a large spectrum of techniques, mostly inspired by approaches in the wireless communication domain including channel coding techniques. Unfortunately, many known channel codes do not perform well in the molecular communications domain since the diffusion channel features a significant memory component. In this paper, novel methods for channel coding by incorporating the effect of ISI in the design of the channel codes for the molecular diffusion channel are proposed. The results show that the proposed methods provide significant improvements in performance in terms of codeword error rate.
One promising technique for communicating at the nanoscale is molecular communication (MC). In a molecular-communication-via-diffusion-scenario, the memory component of the channel is very high. This gives rise to what is known as inter-symbol interference. Traditional channel coding schemes cannot be utilized in MC due to the high memory. In this paper, a novel low complexity channel coding method is proposed for the molecular communication domain. The design of the proposed channel code takes into account the capability of a nano-device and the characteristics of the molecular communication channel. Simulation results confirm that the proposed method provides a significant improvement in terms of bit error rate. Moreover, a proof-of-concept implementation of the proposed coding scheme is done on a macro-scale testbed. The reliability of the communication link is shown to be significantly increased. INDEX TERMS Molecular communications, nanonetworking, diffusion channel, channel coding. ALI E. PUSANE (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electronics and communications engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 1999 and 2002, respectively, and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering, the M.Sc. degree in applied mathematics, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
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