© 1999 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Nanomedicine, Volume I: Basic Capabilities, Landes Bioscience, Georgetown, TX, 1999

7.4.4 Interdevice Messaging

Physically linked nanomachines may communicate with each other through their tethers or network connections. Messaging between physically separated in vivo nanodevices will normally take place via acoustic or chemical, and occasionally mechanical or optical, modalities.

Interdevice communications has been extensively discussed in both free-tissue (broadcast) and cable contexts for chemical messaging (Sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.5.5), acoustic messaging (Sections 7.2.2 and 7.2.5.3), electromagnetic messaging (Sections 7.2.3 and 7.2.5.1-2), mechanical tapping and cable messaging (Sections 7.2.4 and 7.2.5.4), metamorphic surface reconfigurations (Section 5.3.2.5) and network configurations (Section 7.3). The general conclusion is that untethered free nanorobots will typically have maximum interdevice communication ranges on the order of ~100-200 microns; interdevice messaging much beyond that distance probably must be handled by a local or wide-area communications network.

Last updated on 19 February 2003