Recent developments in nanotechnology herald nanometer-sized devices expected to bring light to a number of groundbreaking applications. Communication with and among nanodevices will be needed for unlocking the full potential of such applications. As the traditional communication approaches cannot be directly applied in nanocommunication, several alternative paradigms have emerged. Among them, electromagnetic nanocommunication in the terahertz (THz) frequency band is particularly promising, mainly due to the breakthrough of novel materials such as graphene. For this reason, numerous research efforts are nowadays targeting THz band nanocommunication and consequently nanonetworking. As it is expected that these trends will continue in the future, we see it beneficial to summarize the current status in these research domains. In this survey, we therefore aim to provide an overview of the current THz nanocommunication and nanonetworking research. Specifically, we discuss the applications envisioned to be supported by nanonetworks operating in the THz band, together with the requirements such applications pose on the underlying nanonetworks. Subsequently, we provide an overview of the current contributions on the different layers of the protocol stack, as well as the available channel models and experimentation tools. As the final contribution, we identify a number of open research challenges and outline several potential future research directions.
翻译:由于传统通信方法无法直接应用于纳米通信,因此出现了一些替代模式。其中,泰赫兹(Thz)频段的电磁纳米通信特别有希望,这主要是由于古纳素等新材料的突破。为此原因,许多研究工作目前都针对Thz波段纳米通信,并因此针对纳米网络。由于预计这些趋势将在未来继续下去,我们认为总结这些研究领域的当前状况是有益的。因此,我们在这次调查中力求概述目前Thz纳米通信和纳米网络研究的情况。具体地说,我们讨论了设想在Thz波段运行的纳米网络支持的应用,以及作为基础的纳米网络的应用要求。随后,我们概述了目前对协议堆不同层的贡献,以及现有的频道模型和实验工具。我们确定了最终研究方向,我们确定了一些潜在的挑战。