Propagation Delay and Loss Analysis for Bacteria-Based Nanocommunications

Flagellated bacteria have been suggested as one of the means to deliver information at nanoscales due to their ability to store massive amounts of data in their DNA strands and their mobility properties. In this paper, the propagation delay and message loss rates are mathematically derived for bacterial nanocommunications. The mobility pattern of the flagellated bacteria is investigated and a stochastic model of the bacteria mobility is developed. The proposed model is then used to derive the performance metrics of interest such as the link reliability as well as the propagation delay distribution for the case where N bacteria are used to deliver the messages between two nanomachines. Our solution reveals that at communication distances inherent for bacteria-based nanonetworks (1 ~ 10mm) reliable links can be established using just few hundreds of bacteria. The presented approach provides the so-far missing analytical building block for performance analysis of prospective bacteria-based nanonetworks.