Voxel-based simulation approach for molecular communications via diffusion

Abstract

Molecular communications via diffusion (MCvD) systems are easily simulated for micro-scale topologies and applications. On the other hand, due to the high path loss, there is a need for the emission of a very large number of molecules to have a detectable signal for the macro-scale topologies. Therefore, the simulation of macro-scale MCvD systems or applications has its own challenges. In this work, a voxel-based simulator for MCvD is proposed and analyzed. The proposed simulator is able to consider a very large amount of molecules since it does not track every molecule, instead it simulates the aggregate behavior. We assess the correctness of such a simulation approach through comparative studies with a particle-based (i.e., per-molecule) simulation. We present the effect of voxel side-length on the modeling accuracy and devise a framework for selecting the optimal voxel side-length for high-accuracy simulations.