Model Based Error Rate Analysis of Electrical-to-Molecular Communication Interface via Redox Mechanisms

Engineering bioelectrical interfaces to bridge electrical devices and biochemical elements (natural or synthetic) is a crucial step toward realizing the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) paradigm. In this paper, one such interface, which generalizes information transfer from the electrical domain to the molecular domain, is presented and analyzed. By leveraging molecular communication principles, the main electrochemical components of this interface are abstracted with reference to an experimental prototype that leverages redox mechanisms. In particular, every components capture the physical/chemical processes underlying the communication capabilities of this interface. Subsequently, a computational model based on the finite difference method is developed and implemented as a stochastic simulation in MATLAB. Through simulations, the communication performance of this interface are measured in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) with respect to variations of design parameters such as initial concentration, input bit rate, and input length. The promising outcomes of this work will serve as a foundation for a thorough exploration of this novel kind of interfaces and their communication performance.