Dielectrophoretic Relay Assisted Molecular Communication for In-Sequence Molecule Delivery

With current research focus to interconnect the molecular communication environment with external environment, it is imperative to design external devices working on molecular communication schemes to be interfaced with in-vivo molecular network. Recently, efforts have been made to integrate molecular communication with Lab-on-chip (LOC); one of the techniques used in LOC for manipulation and transportation of molecules is Dielctrophoresis (DEP). We propose the use of DEP in molecular communication to maintain in-sequence delivery of molecules. DEP planar electrodes are modeled as relays used in telecommunications. We describe the theoretical system model and analyze the effect of introducing DEP relays in diffusive channel in terms of probability of in-sequence delivery of molecules. Information rate of DEP-based channel is analytically obtained for in-sequence delivery. The numerical results obtained show that the information rate for in-sequence delivery of molecules through diffusive channel increases by 26% if DEP relays are used in the channel. Though the system is sensitive to noise variance, incorporation of DEP relay results in a substantial improvement in the capacity of the channel.