Designing a Light-based Communication System with a Biomolecular Receiver

Biological systems transduce signals from their surroundings in numerous ways. This paper introduces a communication system using the light-gated ion channel Channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), which causes an ion current to flow in response to light. Our design includes a ChR2-based receiver along with encoding, modulation techniques and detection. Analyzing the resulting communication system, we discuss the effect of different parameters on the performance of the system. Finally, we discuss its potential design in the context of bio-engineering and light-based communication and show that the data rate scales up with the number of receptors, indicating that high-speed communication may be possible.