Impact of Reactive Obstacle on Molecular Communication between Nanomachines

Molecular communication is an emerging technology for communication between bio-nanomachines in an aqueous environment. In this paper, we examine the effect of a reactive obstacle, which is placed in the diffusive molecular communication channel, on the expected number of the received molecules at the receiver. We develop a particle-based simulator that can predict the number of the received molecules for both passive and absorptive receivers by considering the impact of the reactive obstacle within the communication channel. The impacts of the reaction probability and radius of the obstacle on the received signal are examined and compared with the case of absence of the obstacle. The results show significant impact for the obstacle on the received signal, particularly, for obstacle with high reaction probability and large size.