Simulation of a Molecular Motor Based Communication Network

Molecular communication provides a mechanism for the coordination and control of micro-scale and nano-scale devices. In this paper, we describe simulation models to evaluate a molecular communication system that uses molecular motors to transport information molecules over a filament network. The molecular communication system includes an abstracted sender device that releases the information molecules into the environment and a receiver device that detects those molecules as information. In biological systems, molecules move through the environment using methods such as molecular motors that walk on filaments (for certain intracellular transport) or passive diffusion through Brownian motion (for both inter and intracellular transport). We perform simulations to compare the molecular motor system and a Brownian diffusion system and measure the success rate and delay of communicating to receivers. Recent research in engineering biological systems focuses on communication on a two-dimensional surface, and thus we focus on characterizing communications between a sender and receiver that are randomly located on a surface