The effect of RBCs concentration in blood on the wireless communication in Nano-networks in the THz band

Abstract In-vivo wireless nano-sensor networks have been proven to be a promising technology that will enable a variety of applications ranging from health monitoring and diagnosis to drug delivery systems. Miniaturization of the components of nano-devices enforced the electromagnetic communication among nano-devices to be in the THz band. Unfortunately, in-vivo medium contains bio-materials and fluids, e.g., blood, that contaminate the THz signal, which highlighted the urgency behind investigating the blood’s spreading and absorption spectrum in the THz band. In this paper, we present an electromagnetic model for blood with the flexibility of specifying the volume fraction and the particle shape of its Red Blood Cells (RBCs) by using Effective Medium Theory (EMT), we investigate the effect of the volume fraction of its RBCs (also known as hematocrit) on its characteristics and on the amount of contamination that the wireless signal will suffer while being transmitted. In particular, we analyze the blood as a medium for wireless signals in the THz band under different bandwidths and parameters including, path loss, molecular noise, SNR and information rate. The main findings of this paper concludes that as the RBCs concentration increase, the path loss and molecular noise decrease. The signal in blood with different RBCs concentrations ranging from 20% to 60% will experience the same noise and path loss in the band 0.1–0.6 THz. Most notably, we found out that the optimum frequency range of operation where the concentration of RBCs will not introduce any peculiarities is the frequency range 0.1–0.6 THz, which could be used as a unified range for forthcoming THz communications in blood with any RBCs concentrations ranging from 20% to 60%. We finally conclude that the particle shape of the RBCs has no effect on the blood as a THz medium for wireless communications.

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