Automata Modeling of Quorum Sensing for Nanocommunication Networks

Abstract

Nanotechnology is enabling the development of devices in a scale ranging one to hundreds of nanometers. Communication between these devices underlying in the nanoscale greatly expands the possible applications, increasing the complexity and range of operation of the system. Several options for nanocommunications have been discovered and studied, and many of them take some natural mechanisms and processes as a model, or directly use di erent elements from nature to serve its purposes. For instance, in molecular communications, the information is encoded in tiny particles secreted by the emitter. In this work, a special case of molecular communications is studied and modeled. Quorum Sensing is a mechanism used by bacteria to sense their own population and coordinate or synchronize their actions, through the emission and sensing of molecules called autoinducers. The behavior of each bacterium involved featuring Quorum Sensing is modeled as an individual nite state automaton, capturing its course of action. Later, the design of a novel nanomachine that will include Quorum Sensing is presented, along with its applications. Mainly, Quorum Sensing will serve to synchronize the processes of a group of nanodevices, and this idea is developed to present \Collective Actuation Synchronization" and \Collective Actuation after Localized Sensing" nanomachines. Finally, these con gurations are implemented and simulated, and the results are later discussed.