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

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

7.4 Communications Tasks

Nanomedical messaging tasks fall into three broad categories:

1. nanorobots communicating with externalities including physicians, laboratory machines, external computers, or even the conscious perception of the patient himself;

2. nanorobots communicating with other nanorobots; and

3. nanorobots communicating with human organs, tissues, or cellular systems.

Communications data flowing into a nanorobot from some extrarobotic source is called inmessaging; outward-bound data transfers are called outmessaging. A comprehensive examination of all these possibilities is beyond the scope of this book. The present discussion is limited to a brief overview of the following elementary situations: inmessaging from external sources (Section 7.4.1), inmessaging from patient or user (Section 7.4.2), intradevice messaging (Section 7.4.3), interdevice messaging (Section 7.4.4), biocellular messaging (Section 7.4.5), outmessaging to the user (Section 7.4.6), outmessaging to an external receiver (Section 7.4.7), and transvenue outmessaging (Section 7.4.8). Some of the examples presented may appear whimsical from a 20th century perspective, but they illustrate the incredible variety and power inherent in the technology. A discussion of user interfaces is largely deferred to Chapter 12.

Last updated on 19 February 2003