The interconnection of molecular machines with di↵erent functionalities to form
molecular communication systems can increase the number of design possibilities and overcome
the limited reliability of the individual molecular machines. Artificial information
exchange using molecular signals would also expand the capabilities of single engineered
cell populations by providing them a way to cooperate across heterogeneous cell populations
for the applications of synthetic biology and lab-on-a-chip systems. The realization
of molecular communication systems necessitates analysis and design of the communication
channel, where the information carrying molecular signal is transported from the transmitter
to the receiver.
In this thesis, significant progress towards the use of microfluidic channels to interconnect
molecular transmitter and receiver pairs is presented. System-theoretic analysis of the
microfluidic channels are performed, and a finite-impulse response filter is designed using
microfluidic channels. The spectral density of the propagation noise is studied and the
additive white Gaussian noise channel model is developed. Memory due to inter-di↵usion
of the transmitted molecular signals is also modeled. Furthermore, the interference modeling
is performed for multiple transmitters and its impact on the communication capacity
is shown. Finally, the efficient sampling of the signal transduction by engineered bacterial
receivers connected to a microfluidic channel is investigated for the detection of the
pulse-amplitude modulated molecular signals. This work lays the foundation for molecular
communication over microfluidic channels that will enable interconnection of engineered
molecular machines. |