Labelling is a key task for management systems, having implications for product tracking, information sharing, and safety. Enhanced with nanotechnology, future labelling systems will permit major advances in the state of the art. These advances will mean a greater ability for enterprises to trace products and share product information, even for products that today cannot be labelled. To enable these advances, this project will explore molecular communication for miniaturized labelling systems. Molecular communication is an emerging technology that is already addressing these challenges in experimental settings. In molecular communication, signals are transmitted and conveyed via chemistry. A label employing molecular communication might work in one of two ways: data could be encoded in the spatial pattern of a chemical agent (like a QR code); or data could be encoded in molecular structure (like RNA). Both approaches will be explored.
The proposed goals of this project are twofold. First, we propose to perform theoretical work to analyze the potential and capabilities of tags using molecular communication. Second we propose an experimental design project to miniaturize an existing tag-reading system to demonstrate the potential of our approach. Theoretical work: Molecular communication is an emerging discipline, and much remains unknown about its theoretical capabilities. This part of the project will derive mathematical models for small-scale chemical tagging, considering both information encoded in the chemical pattern (like a QR code) and information embedded in the chemical structure (like RNA). With effective models, the ultimate capabilities of this form of communication may be known. Experimental work: The project builds upon previous collaborative research work of the applicants. Of most relevance to the project plan are a table-top molecular communication apparatus developed by the applicants, and a robotic tag reader, configured to read a chemical tag with embedded data. The goal of the project will be to build upon the experience of designing these systems to miniaturize them and develop reliable, high-density chemical tags. The two parts of the project will reinforce each other: experience gained with the experimental work will be fed back to improve the theoretical models, and vice versa.
Taha Sajjad is a graduate (Ph.D.) student in Lassonde Electrical and Computer Science department York University. She is currently working in Eckford’s Lab on application of molecular communication. Taha did her Masters in Electronics and Communication from University of Engineering and Technology (UET) in 2007. Her research has been revolving around multidisciplinary areas; interfacing power and communication, biomedical instrumentation and photonics. She developed a chaotic model for optimisation of speech recognition in Cochlear implant, resulted in two research papers. She has been a research associate in Alkhawarizmi Institute of Computer Sciences, UET, where she worked on Smart metering project. The project was aimed to investigate and develop reliable and secure ways of remote data metering which suits consumer requirements. This project enabled to reduce the line losses and power theft. Taha also worked shortly in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department of Lahore University of management sciences (LUMS) as a research assistant. She worked at the project of detecting adulteration in fresh milk using portable, reliable, and cost-effective optical sensor. She was a lecturer in National university of emerging sciences Pakistan. Her interest is to expand a way of thinking and enhance skills to make positive difference in society with research.
Eckford is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at York University, Toronto, Canada. He is a pioneer in molecular communication, having written one of the first papers on the subject in 2007; he has also co-authored the first textbook in the field, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Eckford’s research focus is twofold: first, the theoretical analysis of molecular communication from an information-theoretic perspective; and second, the use of low-cost, low-complexity experimental apparatus to demonstrate practical applications of molecular communication. His research has an extensive publication record in some of the field’s top conferences and journals, including the IEEE Nanotechnology Conference and the IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology. His research has also been featured in the international media, in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and IEEE Spectrum.
Guo is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. He has authored over 70 papers. His research interests include heterogeneous networks, molecular communications, complex networks, green communications, and mobile data analytics. He is a co-inventor of world’s first molecular communication prototype.
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