Analyzing the Dynamics of Chemical Networking Protocols with a Signal Processing Approach

One important problem in communication protocol engineering is to predict and analyze the dynamic behavior of protocols. Chemical Networking Protocols (CNPs) – a recently proposed design method inspired by chemical reactions – offers the opportunity to transpose the good and well-understood analyzability of chemical reactions to networking protocols. In this paper, we provide a novel method to analyze the dynamics of “chemical protocols”. We suggest to study their average flow properties by exploiting tools from several well-established fields, such as model linearization proposed in Metabolic Control Analysis, a state-space description classically used in control theory, and the system’s characterization in the frequency domain, which is central to signal theory. With our contribution, CNP designers can easily determine the key parameters of their protocols and understand how to calibrate them in order to obtain the desired behavior. We demonstrate the feasibility of our method by applying it to an actual chemical congestion control protocol and highlight formerly unknown protocol features.