Frontiers in Nano Communications

Dear Colleagues,

Nanocommunication still sounds very futuristic as a name for a serious field of research, especially because the area of application is often seen as the inside of the human body. The nanocommunication community envisions that tiny, autonomous devices can perform medical tasks inside the human body. Since the capabilities of single devices are probably limited, collaboration seems like a promising solution. A network of nanodevices can perform more complex tasks and is the prevalent paradigm.

In recent years, the research community has made enormous progress in conceptualizing the fundamental communication mechanism of nanonetworks. Among those are electromagnetic communication, acoustic communication, and molecular communication. Electromagnetic communication is limited to the Terahertz band, as antennas are small. This type of communication works for already existing wireless sensor networks. However, it is unclear if there is enough available energy at the nanoscale. Thus, molecular communication has been proposed as an alternative form of communication.
Molecular communication emulated hormones and pheromones in living organisms and is thus likely to perform well.

One of the most promising materials for the construction of nanodevices and nanonetworks is graphene. The structural and electronic properties promise various applications ranging from batteries over nanosensors and simple building materials. Most electromagnetic nanonetworks concepts function based on graphene.

Another frequently suggested building material is DNA. Unlike graphene, DNA uses the principle of self-assembly as a construction mechanism at the nanoscale, and many wet-lab experiments were already successful. It is already possible to create vessels that transport medical payload to the desired location or perform computations with DNA at the nanoscale. Besides, DNA is a prime candidate to implement molecular communication.

Over the years, researchers suggested many potential applications in medicine, synthetic biology, or material sciences. This Special Issue intends to provide an overview of the current state of the art of tiny sensor and actuator networks. The main areas of interest are papers on nanocommunication paradigms, network architectures, communication protocols, simulation tools, wet-lab experiments, and other applications.

Prof. Dr. Stefan Fischer
Dr. Florian-Lennert Lau
Guest Editors

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