Body Area Nanonetworks Research Articles

Wireless Body Area Nanonetworks via Vascular Molecular Communication.

Advancements in biotechnology and molecular communication have enabled the utilization of nanomachines in Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN2) for applications such as drug delivery, cancer detection, and emergency rescue services. To study these networks effectively, it is essential to develop an ideal propagation model that includes the channel response between each pair of in-range nanomachines and accounts for the interference received at each receiver node. In this paper, we employ an advection-diffusion equation to obtain a deterministic channel matrix through a vascular WBAN2. Additionally, the closed forms of inter-symbol interference (ISI) and co-channel interference (CCI) are derived for both full duplex (FDX) and half duplex transmission (HDX) modes. By applying these deterministic formulations, we then present the stochastic equivalents of the ideal channel model and interference to provide an innovative communication model by simultaneously incorporating CCI, ISI, and background noise. Finally, we evaluate the results with numerous experiments and use signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and capacity as metrics.

A Molecular Communication Platform Based on Body Area Nanonetwork.

With the development of nanotechnology and biotechnology, the nanomachine can be applied to the interior of the human body. In order to achieve the goal of completing complex tasks, measures to connect multiple nanomachines that can complete more simple tasks are taken. This can expand the ability of a single nanomachine to cooperate and share information to complete more complex tasks—namely, the emergence of the Body Area Network (BAN). In response to the requirements of building a BAN, we must first need to solve the communication problem between two nanomachines. Communication networks based on molecular communication (MC), known as “natural body area networks”, are widely used in biomedical fields. With the considerable development of MC theory, it is urgent to set up an experimental platform to verify and guide theoretical modeling. In this paper, a nanomaterial-based MC platform is designed and built to simulate the cardiovascular system. The platform uses the diffusion of nanoscale pigment particles in water solution in silicone tube to achieve communication process and modulates binary sequence information to messenger molecules by on-off keying (OOK). The platform successfully transmits and receives a 17-bit binary sequence to prove its communication possibilities. To assess the platform capabilities, this paper tests the effects of different solution concentrations, pipeline flow rates, and pressure on platform communications. These factors can be used to expand the modulation schemes that the platform can implement. In future work, some nanomaterials that can be used for molecular communication can be applied to the platform to characterize their channel characteristics.

Performance Analysis of Signal Detection for Amplify-and-Forward Relay in Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication Systems

Molecular communication (MC) is a promising technique of using molecules to realize communication between nanomachines for Internet of Bio-Nano Things in the body area nanonetwork. Due to the properties of diffusion and the attenuation of molecular transmission, the diffusion-based MC confronts with challenges in terms of the communication range and the signal detection accuracy. To extend the coverage, the intermediate nanomachine is deployed as relay between transmitter and its intended receiver. In this article, amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying is researched, and the performance under diverse signal detection schemes is analyzed, including mean square error (MSE) detection, maximum a posteriori probability detection, minimum error probability (MEP) detection under stationary fluid environment, and the MEP detection with a drift velocity simulation. The key parameters, such as the number of released molecules, receiving radius, and the relay position, influencing on the AF relaying performance under different detection methods are explored. The simulation results show that the MEP detection can achieve the best performance gain for the AF relay with a drift velocity channel. In particular, when the number of released molecules is 500, the gain is up to 35 dB.

A nanoscale communication network scheme and energy model for a human hand scenario

Real-time monitoring of medical test parameters as well as biological and chemical substances inside the human body is an aspiration which might facilitate the control of pathologies and would ensure better effectiveness in diagnostics and treatments. Future Body Area NanoNetworks (BANN) represent an ongoing effort to complement these initiatives, although due to its early stage of development, further research is required. This paper contributes with a hierarchical BANN architecture consisting of two types of nanodevices, namely, nanonodes and a nanorouter, which are conceptually designed using technologically available electronic components. A straightforward communication scheme operating at the THz band for the exchange of information among nanodevices is also proposed. Communications are conducted in a human hand scenario since, unlike other parts of the human body, the negative impact of path loss and molecular absorption noise on the propagation of electromagnetic waves in biological tissues is mitigated. However, data transmission is restricted by the tiny size of nanodevices and their extremely limited energy storing capability. To overcome this concern, nanodevices must be powered through the bloodstream and external ultrasound energy harvesting sources. Under these conditions, the necessary energy and its management have been thoroughly examined and assessed. The results obtained reveal the outstanding ability of nanonodes to recharge, thus enabling each pair of nanonode–nanorouter to communicate every 52 min. This apparently long period is compensated by the considerably high number of nanonodes in the network, which satisfies a quasi-constant monitoring of medical parameter readings.

On the Design of an Energy Efficient Data Collection Scheme for Body Area Nano Networks

With the recent advancements in nanotechnologies, Body Area Nanonetworks (BANNETs) are expected to be a promising solution for many critical biomedical applications. Due to the extremely small size of nanomachines, serious energy limitation becomes a challenging roadblock stunting the development of BANNETs. As an initial step towards this end, this paper focuses on the design of an energy-efficient data collection scheme in BANNETs. First, a sleep/wake-up mechanism is introduced to avoid the unnecessary energy consumption when no external request comes. Then, with a careful consideration of both node available energy and transmission energy consumption, we design a new node selection strategy to further reduce the energy consumption in the data collection process. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations for both the proposed data collection scheme and the benchmark greedy scheme to illustrate the energy efficiency of our scheme as well as to discuss the impacts of network parameters on network performance.

On the Design of an Energy Efficient Data Collection Scheme for Body Area Nano Networks

With the recent advancements in nanotechnologies, Body Area Nanonetworks (BANNETs) are expected to be a promising solution for many critical biomedical applications. Due to the extremely small size of nanomachines, serious energy limitation becomes a challenging roadblock stunting the development of BANNETs. As an initial step towards this end, this paper focuses on the design of an energy-efficient data collection scheme in BANNETs. First, a sleep/wake-up mechanism is introduced to avoid the unnecessary energy consumption when no external request comes. Then, with a careful consideration of both node available energy and transmission energy consumption, we design a new node selection strategy to further reduce the energy consumption in the data collection process. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations for both the proposed data collection scheme and the benchmark greedy scheme to illustrate the energy efficiency of our scheme as well as to discuss the impacts of network parameters on network performance.

Terahertz electromagnetic field propagation in human tissues: A study on communication capabilities

A Body Area Nano-NETwork represents a system of biomedical nano-devices that, equipped with sensing, computing, and communication capabilities, can be implanted, ingested, or worn by humans for collecting diagnostic information and tuning medical treatments. The communication among these nano-devices can be enabled by graphene-based nano-antennas, which generate electromagnetic waves in the Terahertz band. However, from a perspective of the electromagnetic field propagation, human tissues generally introduce high losses that significantly impair the communication process, thus limiting communication ranges. In this context, the aim of this contribution is to study the communication capabilities of a Body Area Nano-NETwork, by carefully taking into account the inhomogeneous and disordered structure offered by biological tissues. To this end, the propagation of Pulsed Electric Fields in a stratified media stack made up by stratum corneum, epidermis, dermis, and fat has been carefully modeled. First, electric and magnetic fields, as well as the Poynting vector, have been calculated through an accurate Finite-Difference Time-Domain dispersive modeling based on the fractional derivative operator. Second, path loss and molecular absorption noise temperature have been evaluated. Finally, channel capacity and the related transmission ranges have been estimated by using some baseline physical interfaces. Moreover, the comparison with respect to reference values already available in the literature is presented too. Obtained results clearly highlight that new research efforts are needed to ensure the considered communications due to the severe impairment suffered by electromagnetic waves.

IEEE Access Special Section Editorial: Body Area Networks For Interdisciplinary Research

Recent advancements in integrated circuits, wireless communication, and MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology has enabled low power, nano-technology wireless sensor nodes strategically deployed on the human body to be used by different applications, such as health monitoring, assisted living, and telemedicine. This new area of research is known as Body Area Networks (BANs) [1] , [2] . BAN applications cover a wide area such as sports, entertainment, military, ubiquitous health care, and many other areas. BAN has multiple opportunities of interdisciplinary research where researchers from different areas of science and technology jointly put their efforts to improve the human body monitoring and performance. Due to these joint efforts, BAN is now evolving into Body Area Nano Networks (BANNs) as well [3] , [4] . The BANNs are further extended with Internet of Nano Things and Internet of Bio-Nano Things technologies.

On the Interaction between a Nanoparticulate System and the Human Body in Body Area Nanonetworks

In this work, we investigate the interaction of a nanoparticulate system for nanomedicine applications with the biological environment, i.e., the human body. Following the molecular communication paradigm, we assess how our nanoparticulate system model is suitable for coexistence in a biological environment. Specifically, we assume the presence of the human immune system that can affect the optimal behavior of nanoparticles, aiming to locally deliver drug inside the human body. When a flow of nanoparticles is injected into the blood, the interference due to the immune system can provide a strong decrease of the nanoparticle concentration, by means of “humoral immunity”, the phagocytosis process, etc. As a consequence, the correct drug delivery will occur with a lower probability. Since the mechanism behind the biological immune system is very complicated, in this paper, we start from a simplistic nanoparticulate model, where the nanoparticles and the cells of the immune system are subject to the diffusion laws. Finally, we derive the end-to-end physical model of our nanoparticulate nanomedicine system with the presence of the human immune system cells. The error analysis is then investigated in terms of how these errors can affect the performance of the system, i.e., nanoparticle survival probability.

A Service-Oriented Architecture for Body Area NanoNetworks with Neuron-based Molecular Communication

Molecular communication provides communication and networking capabilities for nanomachines such as biosensors and bio-actuators to form and enable Body Area NanoNetworks (BANNs). This paper considers neuron-based molecular communication, which utilizes natural neurons as a primary component to build BANNs, and proposes an end-to-end software architecture to manage and control neuron-based BANNs through a series of software services. Those services aid to realize end user applications in healthcare, such as biomedical and rehabilitation applications. In the proposed architecture, a neuron-based BANN consists of a set of nanomachines and a network of neurons that are artificially formed into a particular topology. This paper investigates two mechanisms in the proposed architecture: (1) an artificial assembly method to form neurons into specific three-dimensional topology patterns and (2) a communication protocol for neuronal signaling based on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), called Neuronal TDMA. The assembly method uses silica beads as growth surface and bead-bead contacts as geometrical constraints on neuronal connectivity. A web lab experiment verifies this method with neuronal hippocampal cells. Neuronal TDMA leverages an evolutionary multiobjective optimization algorithm (EMOA) to optimize the signaling schedules for nanomachines. Simulation results demonstrate that the Neuronal TDMA efficiently obtains quality solutions.

On the design of an energy-harvesting protocol stack for Body Area Nano-NETworks

Body Area Nano-NETworks (BANNETs) consist of integrated nano-machines, diffused in the human body for collecting diagnostic information and tuning medical treatments. Endowed with communication capabilities, such nano-metric devices can interact with each other and the external micro/macro world, thus enabling advanced health-care services (e.g., therapeutic, monitoring, sensing, and telemedicine tasks). Due to limited computational and communication capabilities of nano-devices, as well as their scarce energy availability, the design of powerful BANNET systems represents a very challenging research activity for upcoming years. Starting from the most significant and recent findings of the research community, this work provides a further step ahead by proposing a hierarchical network architecture, which integrates a BANNET and a macro-scale health-care monitoring system and two different energy-harvesting protocol stacks that regulate the communication among nano-devices during the execution of advanced nano-medical applications. The effectiveness of devised solutions and the comparison with the common flooding-based communication technique have been evaluated through computer simulations. Results highlight pros and cons of considered approaches and pave the way for future activities in the Internet of Nano-Things and nano-medical research fields.

Green Wireless Body Area Nanonetworks: Energy Management and the Game of Survival

In this paper, we envisage the architecture of Green Wireless Body Area Nanonetwork (GBAN) as a collection of nanodevices, in which each device is capable of communicating in both the molecular and wireless electromagnetic communication modes. The term green refers to the fact that the nanodevices in such a network can harvest energy from their surrounding environment, so that no nanodevice gets old solely due to the reasons attributed to energy depletion. However, the residual energy of a nanodevice can deplete substantially with the lapse of time, if the rate of energy consumption is not comparable with the rate of energy harvesting. It is observed that the rate of energy harvesting is nonlinear and sporadic in nature. So, the management of energy of the nanodevices is fundamentally important. We specifically address this problem in a ubiquitous healthcare monitoring scenario and formulate it as a cooperative Nash Bargaining game. The optimal strategy obtained from the Nash equilibrium solution provides improved network performance in terms of throughput and delay.

A review of experimental opportunities for molecular communication

The growth of nanotechnology has led to miniature devices that are able to perform limited functionalities in hard to access areas. Example nanodevice applications in the healthcare domain include early detection of harmful diseases. The current field of molecular communication is aiming to increase the functionalities of nanodevices, by enabling communication to be performed. Since its first introduction, communication researchers have been proposing various solutions that could possibly realize molecular communications (e.g., molecular diffusion and bacteria nanonetworks). These solutions have largely been limited to theoretical simulation modeling. However, to fully realize a future for real deployments and developments of molecular communication, a strong synergy will be required with molecular biologists. The aim of this paper is to create this link, and at the same time provide guidance for current molecular communication researchers of possible real developments of molecular communication based on the current state-of-the-art experimental work. In particular, we present a review on bacteria communication and membrane nanotubes, as well as neuronal networks. We also discuss possible applications in the future focusing in particular on Body Area NanoNetworks (BAN2).

Body area nanonetworks with molecular communications in nanomedicine

Recent developments in nano and biotechnology enable promising therapeutic nanomachines (NMs) that operate on inter- or intracellular area of human body. The networks of such therapeutic NMs, body area nanonetworks (BAN <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> s), also empower sophisticated nanomedicine applications. In these applications, therapeutic NMs share information to perform computation and logic operations, and make decisions to treat complex diseases. Hence, one of the most challenging subjects for these sophisticated applications is the realization of BAN <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> through a nanoscale communication paradigm. In this article, we introduce the concept of a BAN <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> with molecular communication, where messenger molecules are used as communication carrier from a sender to a receiver NM. The current state of the art of molecular communication and BAN <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> in nanomedicine applications is first presented. Then communication theoretical efforts are reviewed, and open research issues are given. The objective of this work is to introduce this novel and interdisciplinary research field and highlight major barriers toward its realization from the viewpoint of communication theory.