Block Synchronization for Diffusion-based Molecular Communication Systems

In this paper, we consider the block synchronization issue in molecular communications via diffusion (MCvD). To maintain an internal clock with a fixed clock offset in both transmitter and receiver requires additional energy in nanosensors that have limited power and chemical budget. Therefore, synchronization becomes a challenging issue to handle complex tasks in the nanonetworks. In MCvD systems, most of the transmitted molecules hit the receiver surface at the start of the symbol interval. Therefore, while detecting the start of the symbol duration, a small synchronization error results in a high symbol detection error. To address the issue, we suggest several synchronization frameworks for the MCvD systems that can be categorized into two main classes: per-symbol and per-block synchronization. Moreover, we investigate the impact of synchronization error on the symbol-error-rate (SER) performance.