Guest editorial for signal processing aspects of molecular communications

Abstract

Molecular communication is the most widespread communication mechanism on the Earth since it is fundamental for all living entities from unicellular organisms to multicellular animals and plants to maintain their vital functionalities. For example, many unicellular organisms sense and react to molecular signals from their surroundings to control their life cycles. Some signaling molecules called pheromone are also extensively employed by a variety of insects to send and receive information to coordinate colony activities. Moreover, in the neuronal system, signaling molecules known as neurotransmitters are used in junction points of neuron cells to carry out many mental activities. In addition to the various molecular communication mechanisms in nature, the recent advances in nano- and biotechnology have shown that molecular communication is one of the most favorable choices to enable the interconnection of nanomachines such as engineered cells and bionanorobots. The network of such nanomachines, i.e., nanonetwork, is considered to make frontier biomedical applications a reality. In these applications, molecular communication can enable the nanomachines to share information so as to provide reliability and controllability. Furthermore, this can also allow different nanomachine populations to be coordinated to reach highly sophisticated behavior and increase the number of design possibilities.