A Hands-On Molecular Communication Testbed for Undergraduate Education
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866912742183534592 |
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| author | Gaedeken, Arne Wietfeld, Alexander Zhao, Yaning Deppe, Christian Jorswieck, Eduard Kellerer, Wolfgang |
| author_facet | Gaedeken, Arne Wietfeld, Alexander Zhao, Yaning Deppe, Christian Jorswieck, Eduard Kellerer, Wolfgang |
| contents | This work presents a hands-on molecular communication (MC) testbed developed for the undergraduate Communication Engineering lab course at the Institute for Communications Technology (IfN), TU~Braunschweig. The goal of the experiment is to provide students with an intuitive and reproducible introduction to MC concepts using a low-cost and accessible fluidic setup. The system employs a background water flow into which three dye colors are injected and symbols are detected by a multi-wavelength photosensor. A zero-forcing--based estimator is used to separate the spectral components and reliably identify the transmitted colors. The experiment is designed to be completed independently by students within a single laboratory session and requires only basic prior knowledge from introductory communication engineering courses. A detailed script accompanies the experiment, guiding students through channel characterization, color detection, pseudoinverse computation, and simple data transmission using on-off keying. In pilot trials, students successfully reproduced the entire communication chain and achieved stable data rates of up to 0.5~bit/s over a 15~cm channel. The proposed testbed demonstrates that fundamental principles of MC can be taught effectively using a compact and inexpensive experimental setup. The experiment will be integrated into an undergraduate lab course. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_01904 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | A Hands-On Molecular Communication Testbed for Undergraduate Education Gaedeken, Arne Wietfeld, Alexander Zhao, Yaning Deppe, Christian Jorswieck, Eduard Kellerer, Wolfgang Physics Education Information Theory This work presents a hands-on molecular communication (MC) testbed developed for the undergraduate Communication Engineering lab course at the Institute for Communications Technology (IfN), TU~Braunschweig. The goal of the experiment is to provide students with an intuitive and reproducible introduction to MC concepts using a low-cost and accessible fluidic setup. The system employs a background water flow into which three dye colors are injected and symbols are detected by a multi-wavelength photosensor. A zero-forcing--based estimator is used to separate the spectral components and reliably identify the transmitted colors. The experiment is designed to be completed independently by students within a single laboratory session and requires only basic prior knowledge from introductory communication engineering courses. A detailed script accompanies the experiment, guiding students through channel characterization, color detection, pseudoinverse computation, and simple data transmission using on-off keying. In pilot trials, students successfully reproduced the entire communication chain and achieved stable data rates of up to 0.5~bit/s over a 15~cm channel. The proposed testbed demonstrates that fundamental principles of MC can be taught effectively using a compact and inexpensive experimental setup. The experiment will be integrated into an undergraduate lab course. |
| title | A Hands-On Molecular Communication Testbed for Undergraduate Education |
| topic | Physics Education Information Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.01904 |