MC-BRIDGE: A Modular Receiver-Chain Simulation Framework for OECT-Based Molecular Communication
Organic electrochemical transistor (OECT)-based molecular communication (MC) receivers connect transport and binding to device current, noise, calibration, and detection. We present MC-BRIDGE (Molecular Communication Bioelectronic Receiver-chain Integrated Design and Guided Evaluation), a modular framework linking release, extracellular diffusion, finite-area observation, stochastic binding, and OECT transduction to charge-domain detection. On an independent electrical time grid, it generates sequence-wide multichannel colored noise, performs control-channel referencing and charge integration, and supports molecule-shift-keying (MoSK), concentration-shift-keying (CSK), and Hybrid decisions. Through common module interfaces, it estimates symbol error rate (SER) and decoded-symbol mutual information and analyzes inter-symbol interference (ISI). At nominal separation, the passive finite-area observer retains 27.5 percent of the center-point decision-charge magnitude, while correlation between the selective and control channels determines whether control referencing helps. After adaptive search, held-out records with seeds disjoint from search and calibration test the selected and next-lower budgets, yielding a tested-grid upper bound on the minimum budget meeting the SER target. This passive-field test resets receptor occupancy, excludes ISI, and calibrates thresholds on separate records at each operating point. Retaining transport and receptor memory instead produces high SER. Thus, geometry, covariance, calibration, and memory can change receiver conclusions.