Wireless NanoSensor Networks (WNSNs), i.e., networks of nanoscale devices with unprecedented
sensing capabilities, are the enabling technology of long-awaited applications such
as advanced health monitoring systems or surveillance networks for chemical and biological
attack prevention. The peculiarities of the Terahertz Band, which is the envisioned
frequency band for communication among nano-devices, and the extreme energy limitations
of nanosensors, which require the use of nanoscale energy harvesting systems, introduce
major challenges in the design of MAC protocols for WNSNs. This paper aims to design
energy and spectrum-aware MAC protocols for WNSNs with the objective to achieve fair,
throughput and lifetime optimal channel access by jointly optimizing the energy harvesting
and consumption processes in nanosensors. Towards this end, the critical packet transmission
ratio (CTR) is derived, which is the maximum allowable ratio between the transmission
time and the energy harvesting time, below which a nanosensor can harvest more energy
than the consumed one, thus achieving perpetual data transmission. Based on the CTR, first,
a novel symbol-compression scheduling algorithm, built on a recently proposed pulsebased
physical layer technique, is introduced. The symbol-compression solution utilizes
the unique elasticity of the inter-symbol spacing of the pulse-based physical layer to allow
a large number of nanosensors to transmit their packets in parallel without inducing collisions.
In addition, a packet-level timeline scheduling algorithm, built on a theoretical bandwidth-
adaptive capacity-optimal physical layer, is proposed with an objective to achieve
balanced single-user throughput with infinite network lifetime. The simulation results
show that the proposed simple scheduling algorithms can enable nanosensors to transmit
with extremely high speed perpetually without replacing the batteries.