Convolutional Codec Implemented by Genetic Circuits for Molecular Communication

Molecular communication (MC), which transmits information through molecules, has emerged as a promising technique to enable communication links between nanomachines. To establish information transmission using molecules, synthetic biology through genetic circuits techniques can be utilized to construct biological components. Recent efforts on genetic circuits have produced many exciting MC systems and generated substantial insights. With basic gene regulatory modules and motifs, researchers are now constructing artificial networks with novel functions that will serve as building blocks in the MC system. In this paper, we investigate the design of genetic circuits to implement the convolutional codec in a diffusion-based MC channel with the concentration shift keying (CSK) transmission scheme. At the receiver, a majority-logic decoder is applied to decode the received symbols. These functions are completely realized in the field of biochemistry through the activation and inhibition of genes and biochemical reactions, rather than through classical electrical circuits. Biochemical simulations are used to verify the feasibility of the system and analyze the impairments caused by diffusion noise and chemical reaction noise of genetic circuits.