Simulation and Performance Evaluation of a Bio-Inspired Nanogenerator for Medical Applications.

Providing sufficient energy for autonomous systems at the nanoscale is one of the major challenges of the Internet of Nano Things (IoNT). Existing battery technologies and conventional integrated circuits cannot be used in such small dimensions. Even if they are small enough to be used at the nano level, they still cannot be used in medical applications due to biocompatibility issues. M13 is a very promising virus with piezoelectric properties, which has attracted much interest in the scientific community as a bioenergy harvester. However, M13 studies presented so far in the literature are designed only for macroscale systems. In this paper, we simulate two designs of a bio-inspired nanogenerator based on the properties of M13 for nanosystems. We derive the stiffness matrix of M13, its dielectric and piezoelectric matrices and its density. We verify our calculated values by comparing our simulations with the results of experimental studies presented in the literature. We also evaluate the system's performance in terms of frequency response and loading characteristics. The results presented in this study show that a single M13 is a very promising nano-generator that can be used for medical applications.

Design and Evaluation of a Receiver for Wired Nano-Communication Networks.

In this paper, we propose a bio-inspired receiver, which detects the electrons transmitted through a nanowire, then, it converts the detected information to blue light using bioluminescence. We simulate the construction of the nanowire, present its electrical characteristics and calculate its maximum capacity for a better design of the receiver. The designed receiver contains two parts; a part that detects the transmitted electrons, which we model by using an equivalent circuit, and a part that converts the detected electrons to blue light. We derive the analytical expressions of the components of the equivalent circuit and give an approximation of their values. We calculate the probability of photons emission for each electrical pulse detected. We also determine the optimal threshold for Integrate Sample and Dump (ISD) receiver. We calculate the error probability of bits detection and present analytical and simulation results to evaluate the performance of the designed receiver. The results of this study show that the designed receiver can accurately detect the electrons sent through a conductive nanowire. Thus providing, to the best of our knowledge, the first technical solution that leads towards integrated wired electrical and optical nanonetworks.

Performance Enhancement of Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication.

Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI) is one of the challenges of bio-inspired diffusion-based molecular communication. The degradation of the remaining molecules from a previous transmission is the solution that biological systems use to mitigate this ISI. While most prior work has proposed the use of enzymes to catalyze the molecules degradation, enzymes also degrade the molecules carrying the information, which drastically decreases the signal strength. In this paper, we propose the use of photolysis reactions, which use the light to instantly transform the emitted molecules so they no longer be recognized after their detection. The light will be emitted in an optimal time, allowing the receiver to detect as many molecules as possible, which increases both the signal strength and ISI mitigation. A lower bound expression on the expectation of the observed molecules number at the receiver is derived. Bit error probability expression is also formulated, and both expressions are validated with simulation results, which show a visible enhancement when using photolysis reactions. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated using Interference-to-Total-Received molecules metric (ITR) and the derived bit error probability.