Biologically inspired bio-cyber interface architecture and model for internet of Bio-NanoThings applications

Abstract

With the advent of nanotechnology, concepts related to the Internet of Things, such as the Internet of NanoThings and Internet of Bio-NanoThings (IoBNT) have also emerged in the classical literature. The main concern of this paper is the IoBNT, which projects the prospective application domain where the activities of very tiny, biocompatible, and non-intrusive devices operating in an in-body nanonetwork can be monitored and controlled through the Internet. In this paper, we present an illustrative scenario and system model of an IoBNT for application in an advanced healthcare delivery system. To address one of the major challenges of the IoBNT, we present an exemplary architecture and model of a bio-cyber interface for connecting the conventional electromagnetic-based Internet to the biochemical signaling-based bionanonetwork. The biocyber interface is designed and modeled by employing biological concepts, such as the responsiveness of certain biomolecules to thermal and light stimuli, and the bioluminescence phenomenon of some biochemical reactions. The analysis in this paper focuses on the system that comprises the bio-cyber interface and the information propagation network of the blood vessel that leads to the in-body nanonetwork location. The effects of the system and design parameters associated with the IoBNT models presented are numerically evaluated.