An Acoustic Interface for Biomolecular Nano-Machines

This paper introduces a novel communication interface between the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT). In particular, we propose a transmitter (TX) that emits acoustic waves as the information carriers and a molecular receiver Nano-Machine (NM) that converts the acoustic to a molecular signal. We show, that a combination of mechanosensitive and voltage sensitive ion-channels on the surface of the NM can be used for this conversion. We provide a detailed mathematical model for the system and study the signal characteristics and communication performance via computer simulation. Our concept allows acoustical information transmission in the IoBNT, which is much faster than conventional molecular communications. Nevertheless, conversion from acoustic to molecular signal at the receiver allows compatibility with existing methods.