Molecular Communication over Gas Stream Channels using Portable Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

The synthetic generation/coding and transmission of olfactory information over a gas stream or an odor network is a new and unexplored field. Application areas vary from the entertainment or advertisement industry to security and telemedicine. However, current technological limitations frustrate the accurate reproduction of decoded and transmitted olfactory data. This study describes the development, testing, and characterization of a novel odor emitter (OE) that is used to investigate the generation-encoding of gaseous standards with odorous characteristics with a regulatable way, for scent transmission purposes. The calibration and the responses of a developed OE were examined using a portable quadrupole mass spectrometer (MS). Experiments were undertaken for a range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at different temperatures and flow rates. Individual compounds and mixtures were tested to investigate periodic and dynamic transmission characteristics within two different size tubular containers for distances up to 3 m. Olfactory information transmission is demonstrated using MS as the main molecular sensor for odor detection and monitoring and for the first time spatial encryption of olfactory information is shown. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Channel Modeling for Diffusive Molecular Communication—A Tutorial Review

“…via ligand-receptors), at macroscale, receivers usually measure a quantity that is a function of the molecule concentration (e.g. a pH sensor was used in [59], [72] and mass spectroscopy was used in [154], [140]). In summary, the development of channel models for macroscale MC systems is an important and interesting topic for future research.…”

“…In summary, the development of channel models for macroscale MC systems is an important and interesting topic for future research. We refer the interested reader to [4], [155], [154], [140], [72], [146] for preliminary results on channel modeling for macroscale MC systems.…”

“…Generally-Accepted and Experimentally-Verified Models: Over the past years, several non-biological experimental testbeds [57], [59], [137], [138], [139], [140], [141], [72] and biological experimental testbeds [142], [143], [144], [145], [136] have been developed to demonstrate MC. Most of these experimental testbeds were developed as proofs-of-concept for human-designed MC and have not led to the development of general mathematical MC channel models.…”

Volatolomics: A broad area of experimentation

“…Microorganisms can release specific VOCs that allow above-and below ground short-and long-distance interactions among themselves or with plants and insects [15,17]. These microbial VOCs are responsible for the generation of beneficial or harmful effects on other organisms, as they allow accurate communication (chemical signalling followed by message transmission and subsequent decoding) [15,16,[18][19][20][21]. Microbial molecular communication using VOCs occurs between bacteria, fungi, bacteria-fungi, bacteria-fungi-plants, etc.…”

Distance estimation methods for a practical macroscale molecular communication system

“…In [6], a similar system is proposed where magnetic nanoparticles are employed instead of chemicals. In [7] and [8], it is shown that an odor generator and a mass spectrometer can be employed as a molecular transmitter (TX) and molecular receiver (RX), respectively. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique is proposed in [9] to increase the data rate for macroscale MC.…”