Experimental characterization of hydrodynamic gating-based molecular communication transmitter

Abstract

Molecular communication (MC) is a bio-inspired method of transmitting information using biochemical signals, promising for novel medical, agricultural, and environmental applications at the intersection of bio-, nano-, and communication technologies. Developing reliable MC systems for high-rate information transfer remains challenging due to the complex and dynamic nature of application environments and the physical and resource limitations of micro/nanoscale transmitters and receivers. Microfluidics can help overcome many such practical challenges by enabling testbeds that can replicate the application media with precise control over flow conditions. However, existing microfluidic MC testbeds face significant limitations in chemical signal generation with programmable signal waveforms, e.g., in terms of pulse width. To tackle this, we previously proposed a practical microfluidic MC transmitter architecture based on the hydrodynamic gating technique, a prevalent chemical waveform generation method. This paper reports the experimental validation and characterization of this method, examining its precision in terms of spatiotemporal control on the generated molecular concentration pulses. We detail the fabrication of the transmitter, its working mechanism and discuss its potential limitations based on empirical data. We show that the microfluidic transmitter is capable of providing precise, programmable, and reproducible molecular concentration pulses, which would facilitate the experimental research in MC.