NetSys 2025 Tutorial on The Fusion of Intelligence and Scale: Neural Networks in the Internet of Bio-Nano Things

Tutorial: The Fusion of Intelligence and Scale: Neural Networks in the Internet of Bio-Nano Things

Date: 1st September, 2025

Time: 09:15 - 12:30

Speakers:  Jorge Torres Gómez and Pit Hofmann

Introduction The Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) field is pioneering remarkable research and development paths for the future of medicine. At the heart of the IoBNT frameworks are nanodevices designed to monitor and actuate within the human body, addressing significant challenges for networking as they must communicate over molecular communication (MC) channels. Leveraging the robust potential of deployed neural networks (NNs) in wireless links, here we examine whether a comparable deployment is feasible within MC channels. This tutorial introduces the state of the art of NN models within the IoBNT framework. We highlight the essentials of NN-driven communication and computing approaches, mainly focusing on the bio-inspired MC paradigm. The tutorial explores the most relevant architectures, deployment, and challenges of NNs within the MC channels of IoBNT. Furthermore, this tutorial goes beyond theory; we also dedicate a session to integrating NN into practical testbeds and generating real-world datasets. By offering foundational knowledge and practical applications, this tutorial connects NN-based methodologies and the existing challenges in IoBNT.
 

Objectives This tutorial examines the advanced integration of neural networks (NNs) within the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT). Attendees will gain foundational knowledge of NN-driven methods for transceiver design, real-world dataset generation, and practical testbed deployment in molecular communication (MC) channels. By bridging theoretical concepts with hands-on experience, participants will be equipped to navigate and address MC environments' unique challenges. This tutorial will also highlight recent advances and future research opportunities, enabling researchers and practitioners to leverage NNs for groundbreaking advancements in IoBNT.

With this tutorial, we aim for attendees to accomplish the following goals:

• Describe the main developments of NN-modules in IoBNT networks.
• Develop NN modules for digital communications in MC channels.
• Appraise the application of NN architectures in MC channels through real-world testbed

Outline The tutorial consists of three main sections covering the fundamentals, applications, and AoI-metrics’ implementation:

Part 1: Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT) and Fundamentals of Molecular Communications (MC) [30min]

• Motivation and Applications of the IoBNT
• Fundamentals of MC
• Digital transceivers in MC channels

Part 2: Hands-on session: Neural Network (NN)-Driven Molecular Communication Design [60 min]

• NN-based transceivers in MC channels
• End-to-end learning methods for MC channels
• Data-Driven molecular channel modeling

Part 3: Hands-on session: Real-World Training and Deployment - Hands-On [60 min]

• Testbed Setups (Overview)
• Macroscale, Air-Based Synthetic MC Testbed
• Online Datasets (Overview)
• Offline and Online Training
• NN deployment with real-world testbeds

Part 4:  Future Research Directions [15 min]
 

Requirements for the participants: Participants are asked to bring a laptop. We plan to provide free access to an online Matlab compiler. The code will run online; installing Matlab on your local PC is unnecessary.

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