Stop-and-wait automatic repeat request schemes for molecular communications

This paper provides some initial results on an investigation concerning the application of three tailored Stop-and-Wait Automatic Repeat reQuest (SW-ARQ) schemes to a diffusion based molecular communications system. Each scheme is numerically simulated and evaluated to determine their performance with regards to average time and energy consumption. It is shown that all three schemes can be applied to the system and through the careful choice of parameters, two of the schemes offer favourable performance characteristics with regards to the trade-off between the time and energy requirements of a successful transmission. This trade-off optimisation will become more important in future applications involving molecular communications where energy efficiency is paramount.