Energy requirements of error correction codes in diffusion-based molecular communication systems

Molecular Communications is a promising area with significant potential applications. To enhance the reliability of the transmission process, self-orthogonal convolutional codes (SOCCs) are proposed and investigated with respect to both bit error rate (BER) and energy efficiency. The codes are compared to both an un-coded system and one that employs Hamming codes to show that they can provide a benefit for molecular communication systems. The influence of the channel memory is also analysed in this paper. In addition, taking into account the extra energy required to implement the coding, the critical distance is investigated as another performance metric for nano-to-nano device communication, nano-to-macro device communication and macro-to-nano device communication. Considering the transmission distance and the operating BER of the designed system, the designer can determine whether the use of coding is beneficial or which code better suits the system.