Amplitude Modulation in a Molecular Communication Testbed with
Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles and a Micropump
Abstract
Molecular communication uses molecules or other nanoscale particles to
transmit data in scenarios where conventional communication techniques
are not feasible. In previous work a testbed using superparamagnetic
iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) as information carriers in a fluid
transmission channel with constant background flow was proposed. The
SPIONs are detected at a receiver as change of a coils inductance. We
now improve the testbed by using a piezoelectric micropump as
transmitter, making amplitude modulation (AM) with di?erent injection
volumes possible. Machine learning is employed at the receiver to
di?erentiate between six di?erent amplitude levels and grey code is used
to reduce bit errors. With AM and the designed coding scheme, the
achievable e?ective data rate was doubled to 4.45 bit/s.