On Molecular Multiple-Access, Broadcast, and Relay Channels in Nanonetworks

Molecular communication is a novel paradigm that uses molecules as an information carrier to enable nanomachines to communicate with each other. Interconnections of the nanomachines with molecular communication is envisioned as a nanonetwork. Nanonetworks are expected to enable nanomechines to cooperatively share information such as odor, flavour, light, or any chemical state. In this paper, we develop and present models for the molecular multiple-access, broadcast, and relay channels in a nanonetwork and derive their capacity expressions. Numerical results reveal that the molecular multiple-access of nanomachines to a single nanomachine can be possible with the high molecular communication capacity by selecting the appropriate molecular communication parameters. Similarly, the molecular broadcast can also allow a single nanomachine to communicate with a number of nanomachines with high molecular communication capacity. As a combination of the molecular multiple-access and broadcast channel, we show that the molecular relay channel can improve the molecular communication capacity between two nanomachines using a relay nanomachine.