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.
Projecte final de carrera realitzat en col.laboració amb Broadband Wireless Networking Lab. Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta
