Adaptive Detection and ISI Mitigation for Mobile Molecular Communication

Current studies on modulation and detection schemes in molecular communication mainly focus on the scenarios with static transmitters and receivers. However, mobile molecular communication is needed in many envisioned applications, such as target tracking and drug delivery. Until now, investigations about mobile molecular communication have been limited. In this paper, a static transmitter and a mobile bacterium-based receiver performing random walk are considered. In this mobile scenario, the channel impulse response changes due to the dynamic change of the distance between the transmitter and the receiver. Detection schemes based on fixed distance fail in signal detection in such a scenario. Furthermore, the intersymbol interference (ISI) effect becomes more complex due to the dynamic character of the signal which makes the estimation and mitigation of the ISI even more difficult. In this paper, an adaptive ISI mitigation method and two adaptive detection schemes are proposed for this mobile scenario. In the proposed scheme, adaptive ISI mitigation, estimation of dynamic distance, and the corresponding impulse response reconstruction are performed in each symbol interval. Based on the dynamic channel impulse response in each interval, two adaptive detection schemes, concentration-based adaptive threshold detection and peak-time-based adaptive detection, are proposed for signal detection. Simulations demonstrate that the ISI effect is significantly reduced and the adaptive detection schemes are reliable and robust for mobile molecular communication.