A Droplet-Based Signal Reconstruction Approach to Channel Modeling in Molecular Communication

In this article, a novel droplet-based signal reconstruction (SR) approach to channel modeling, which considers liquid droplets as information carriers instead of molecules in the molecular communication (MC) channel, is proposed for practical sprayer-based macroscale MC systems. These practical MC systems are significant, since they can be used in order to investigate airborne pathogen transmission with biological sensors due to the similar mechanisms of sneezing/coughing and sprayer. Our proposed approach takes a two-phase flow which is generated by the interaction of droplets in liquid phase with air molecules in gas phase into account. Two-phase flow is combined with the SR of the receiver (RX) to propose a channel model. The SR part of the model quantifies how the accuracy of the sensed molecular signal in its reception volume depends on the sensitivity response of the RX and the adhesion/detachment process of droplets. The proposed channel model is validated by employing experimental data.