Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

TECHNOLOGY AND CODE article

Front. Commun. Netw.

Sec. Communications Theory

Towards Realistic Simulation of DNA-based Molecular Communication Networks

Provisionally accepted
  • University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Next to further miniaturization, the process of self-assembly has great potential for construction, computation, and even communication at the nanoscale. DNA-based self-assembly is an especially promising candidate as it is possible to create entire nanonetworks from just DNA from already existing and comparably cheap building blocks. As wet-lab experiments are still fairly expensive and complex, and self-assembly is hard to predict, simulation tools are crucial for the rapid prototyping of new ideas. However, current self-assembly simulators mainly focus on computational and construction aspects. In this paper, we present a new model for our NetTAS simulator, kTHAM, which simulates the possible interactions of very large numbers of DNA structures simultaneously and measures the process in real-time. This allows for a much more realistic analysis of DNA-based nanonetworks as compared to what is possible with other simulators and with the other models of NetTAS.

Keywords: tile-based self-assembly systems, DNA-based nanonetworks, simulation, self-assembly, DNA-based self-assembly, DNA-computing

Received: 19 Nov 2025; Accepted: 08 Dec 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Kaussow, Peters, Scheer, Hyttrek, Fischer and Lau. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Max Kaussow

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.