Mohsen Sardari

Capacity of discrete molecular diffusion channels

In diffusion-based molecular communications, messages can be conveyed via the variation in the concentration of molecules in the medium. In this paper, we intend to analyze the achievable capacity in transmission of information from one node to another in a diffusion channel. We observe that because of the molecular diffusion in the medium, the channel possesses memory. We then model the memory of the channel by a two-step Markov chain and obtain the equations describing the capacity of the diffusion channel. By performing a numerical analysis, we obtain the maximum achievable rate for different levels of the transmitter power, i.e., the molecule production rate.

Capacity of diffusion-based molecular communication with ligand receptors

A diffusion-based molecular communication system has two major components: the diffusion in the medium, and the ligand-reception. Information bits, encoded in the time variations of the concentration of molecules, are conveyed to the receiver front through the molecular diffusion in the medium. The receiver, in turn, measures the concentration of the molecules in its vicinity in order to retrieve the information. This is done via ligand-reception process. In this paper, we develop models to study the constraints imposed by the concentration sensing at the receiver side and derive the maximum rate by which a ligand-receiver can receive information. Therefore, the overall capacity of the diffusion channel with the ligand receptors can be obtained by combining the results presented in this paper with our previous work on the achievable information rate of molecular communication over the diffusion channel.

Design and Analysis of Wireless Communication Systems Using Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication Among Bacteria

The design of biologically-inspired wireless communication systems using bacteria as the basic element of the system is initially motivated by a phenomenon called Quorum Sensing. Due to high randomness in the individual behavior of a bacterium, reliable communication between two bacteria is almost impossible. Therefore, we have recently proposed that a population of bacteria in a cluster is considered as a bio node in the network capable of molecular transmission and reception. This proposition enables us to form a reliable bio node out of many unreliable bacteria. In this paper, we study the communication between two nodes in such a network where information is encoded in the concentration of molecules by the transmitter. The molecules produced by the bacteria in the transmitter node propagate through the diffusion channel. Then, the concentration of molecules is sensed by the bacteria population in the receiver node which would decode the information and output light or fluorescent as a result. The uncertainty in the communication is caused by all three components of communication, i.e., transmission, propagation and reception. We study the theoretical limits of the information transfer rate in the presence of such uncertainties. Finally, we consider M-ary signaling schemes and study their achievable rates and corresponding error probabilities.

Relaying in diffusion-based molecular communication

This paper is eligible for the student paper award. Molecular communication between biological entities is a new paradigm in communications. Recently, we studied molecular communication between two nodes formed from synthetic bacteria. Due to high randomness in behavior of bacteria, we used a population of them in each node. The reliability of such communication systems depends on both the maximum concentration of molecules that a transmitter node is able to produce at the receiver node as well as the number of bacteria in each nodes. This maximum concentration of molecules falls with distance which makes the communication to the far nodes nearly impossible. In order to alleviate this problem, in this paper, we propose to use a molecular relaying node. The relay node can resend the message either by the different or the same type of molecules as the original signal from the transmitter. We study two scenarios of relaying. In the first scenario, the relay node simply senses the received concentration and forwards it to the receiver. We show that this sense and forward scenario, depending on the type of molecules used for relaying, results in either increasing the range of concentration of molecules at the receiver or increasing the effective number of bacteria in the receiver node. For both cases of sense and forward relaying, we obtain the resulting improvement in channel capacity. We conclude that multi-type molecular relaying outperforms the single-type relaying. In the second scenario, we study the decode and forward relaying for the M-ary signaling scheme. We show that this relaying strategy increases the reliability of M-ary communication significantly.

Infocast: A New Paradigm for Collaborative Content Distribution from Roadside Units to Vehicular Networks

In this paper, we address the problem of distributing a large amount of bulk data to a sparse vehicular network from roadside infostations, using efficient vehicle-to-vehicle collaboration. Due to the highly dynamic nature of the underlying vehicular network topology, we depart from architectures requiring centralized coordination, reliable MAC scheduling, or global network state knowledge, and instead adopt a distributed paradigm with simple protocols. In other words, we investigate the problem of reliable dissemination from multiple sources when each node in the network shares a limited amount of its resources for cooperating with others. By using rateless coding at the Road Side Unit (RSU) and using vehicles as data carriers, we describe an efficient way to achieve reliable dissemination to all nodes (even disconnected clusters in the network). In the nutshell, we explore vehicles as mobile storage devices. We then develop a method to keep the density of the rateless codes packets as a function of distance from the RSU at the desired level set for the target decoding distance. We investigate various tradeoffs involving buffer size, maximum capacity, and the mobility parameter of the vehicles.

DMRC: Dissemination of Multimedia in Vehicular Networks Using Rateless Codes

In this paper, we address the problem of delivering multimedia content to a sparse vehicular network from roadside infostations, using efficient vehicle-to-vehicle collaboration. Due to the highly dynamic nature of the underlying vehicular network topology, we depart from architectures requiring centralized coordination, reliable MAC scheduling, or global network state knowledge, and instead adopt a distributed paradigm with simple protocols. In other words, we investigate the problem of reliable dissemination from multiple sources when each node in the network shares a limited amount of its resources for cooperating with others. By using rateless coding at the Road Side Unit (RSU) and using vehicles as data carriers, we describe an efficient way to achieve reliable dissemination to all nodes (even disconnected clusters in the network). In the nutshell, we explore vehicles as mobile storage devices. We then develop a method to keep the density of the rateless coded packets as a function of distance from the RSU at the desired level set for the target decoding distance. We investigate various tradeoffs involving buffer size, maximum capacity, and the mobility parameter of the vehicles.

Data gathering in networks of bacteria colonies: Collective sensing and relaying using molecular communication

The prospect of new biological and industrial applications that require communication in micro-scale, encourages research on the design of bio-compatible communication networks using networking primitives already available in nature. One of the most promising candidates for constructing such networks is to adapt and engineer specific types of bacteria that are capable of sensing, actuation, and above all, communication with each other. In this paper, we describe a new architecture for networks of bacteria to form a data collecting network, as in traditional sensor networks. The key to this architecture is the fact that the node in the network itself is a bacterial colony; as an individual bacterium (biological agent) is a tiny unreliable element with limited capabilities. We describe such a network under two different scenarios. We study the data gathering (sensing and multihop communication) scenario as in sensor networks followed by the consensus problem in a multinode network. We will explain as to how the bacteria in the colony collectively orchestrate their actions as a node to perform sensing and relaying tasks that would not be possible (at least reliably) by an individual bacterium. Each single bacterium in the colony forms a belief by sensing external parameter (e.g., a molecular signal from another node) from the medium and shares its belief with other bacteria in the colony. Then, after some interactions, all the bacteria in the colony form a common belief and act as a single node. We will model the reception process of each individual bacteria and will study its impact on the overall functionality of a node. We will present results on the reliability of the multihop communication for data gathering scenario as well as the speed of convergence in the consensus scenario.

Memory allocation in distributed storage networks

We consider the problem of distributing a file in a network of storage nodes whose storage budget is limited but at least equals the size file. We first generate T encoded symbols (from the file) which are then distributed among the nodes. We investigate the optimal allocation of T encoded packets to the storage nodes such that the probability of reconstructing the file by using any r out of n nodes is maximized. Since the optimal allocation of encoded packets is difficult to find in general, we find another objective function which well approximates the original problem and yet is easier to optimize. We find the optimal symmetric allocation for all coding redundancy constraints using the equivalent approximate problem. We also investigate the optimal allocation in random graphs. Finally, we provide simulations to verify the theoretical results.

DDRC: Data Dissemination in Vehicular Networks Using Rateless Codes *

In this paper, we address the problem of delivering multimedia content to a sparse vehicular network from roadside info-stations, using efficient vehicle-to-vehicle collaboration. Due to the highly dynamic nature of the underlying vehicular network topology, we depart from architectures requiring centralized coordination, reliable MAC scheduling, or global network state knowledge, and instead adopt a distributed paradigm with simple protocols. In other words, we investigate the problem of reliable dissemination from multiple sources when each node in the network shares a limited amount of its resources for cooperating with others. By using rateless coding at the Road Side Unit (RSU) and using vehicles as data carriers, we describe an efficient way to achieve reliable dissemination to all nodes (even disconnected clusters in the network). In the nutshell, we explore vehicles as mobile storage devices. We then develop a method to keep the density of the rateless coded packets as a function of distance from the RSU at the desired level set for the target decoding distance. We investigate various tradeoffs involving buffer size, maximum capacity, and the mobility parameter of the vehicles.

Results on the fundamental gain of memory-assisted universal source coding

Many applications require data processing to be performed on individual pieces of data which are of finite sizes, e.g., files in cloud storage units and packets in data networks. However, traditional universal compression solutions would not perform well over the finite-length sequences. Recently, we proposed a framework called memory-assisted universal compression that holds a significant promise for reducing the amount of redundant data from the finite-length sequences. The proposed compression scheme is based on the observation that it is possible to learn source statistics (by memorizing previous sequences from the source) at some intermediate entities and then leverage the memorized context to reduce redundancy of the universal compression of finite-length sequences. We first present the fundamental gain of the proposed memory-assisted universal source coding over conventional universal compression (without memorization) for a single parametric source. Then, we extend and investigate the benefits of the memory-assisted universal source coding when the data sequences are generated by a compound source which is a mixture of parametric sources. We further develop a clustering technique within the memory-assisted compression framework to better utilize the memory by classifying the observed data sequences from a mixture of parametric sources. Finally, we demonstrate through computer simulations that the proposed joint memorization and clustering technique can achieve up to 6-fold improvement over the traditional universal compression technique when a mixture of non-binary Markov sources is considered.