Low-complexity Non-coherent Signal Detection for Nano-Scale Molecular Communications

Abstract: Nano-scale molecular communication is a viable way of exchanging information between nano-machines. In this letter, a low-complexity and non-coherent signal detection technique is proposed to mitigate the inter-symbol-interference (ISI) and additive noise. In contrast to existing coherent detection methods of high complexity, the proposed non-coherent signal detector is more practical when the channel conditions are hard to acquire accurately or hidden from the receiver. The proposed scheme employs the concentration difference to detect the ISI corrupted signals and we demonstrate that it can suppress the ISI effectively. The concentration difference is a stable characteristic, irrespective of the diffusion channel conditions. In terms of complexity, by excluding matrix operations or likelihood calculations, the new detection scheme is particularly suitable for nano-scale molecular communication systems with a small energy budget or limited computation resource.