Toward location-aware in-body terahertz nanonetworks with energy harvesting

Abstract

Nanoscale wireless networks are expected to revolutionize a variety of domains, with significant advances conceivable in in-body healthcare. These nanonetworks will consist of energy-harvesting nanodevices passively flowing through the bloodstream, taking actions at certain locations, and communicating results to a more powerful Body Area Network (BAN). Assuming such a setup and electro-magnetic nanocommunication in the Terahertz (THz) frequencies, we propose a network architecture that can support fine-grained localization of the energy-harvesting in-body nanonodes, as well as their two-way communication with the outside world. The main novelties of our proposal lie in the utilization of location-aware and Wake-up Radio (WuR)-based wireless nanocommunication paradigms, as well as Software-Defined Metamaterials (SDMs), for supporting the envisioned functionalities in THz-operating energy-harvesting in-body nanonetworks. We argue that, on a high level, the proposed architecture can handle a large number of nanonodes, while simultaneously dealing with a short range of THz in-body propagation and highly constrained nanonodes.