Molecular barcodes: Information transmission via persistent chemical tags

Abstract

In molecular communication information is conveyed through chemical signals. In this work, we have considered a novel communication scheme where information is encoded in chemical barcodes, through use of persistent chemical tags. We have assumed that this information is already encoded in the environment, and we have devised a robotic platform for reading the chemical tag. We have performed many experiments to find the optimal encoding scheme and an algorithm for reading and decoding the chemically tagged information. We have demonstrated that chemical tags can be decoded using simple algorithms and inexpensive, off-the-shelf sensors. Finally, we have evaluated and presented the bit error rate performance of our devised algorithm.