Mutual Information and Noise Distributions of Molecular Signals using Laser Induced Fluorescence

Information embedded in the fluid dynamic properties undergo stochastic behaviour when propagating from transmitter (Tx) to receiver (Rx). This is due to the high dimensionality and continuous dynamic forces of the environment, which erodes the achievable mutual information. Quantifying the statistical noise distribution and mutual information with respect to the key fluid dynamic parameters is important to molecular communication. Here, we empirically study macro-scale molecular signal propagation using a planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) method. We first statistically characterize both the additive and jitter noise distribution. We show that mutual information is maximized under certain transmission strategies and varies with the receiver size. The statistical results can benefit future studies to analyse the impact on communication reliability, and design superior modulation coding schemes.