Addressing Multiple Nodes in Networked Lab-on-a-Chips without Payload Re-injection
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Buchtitel:
International Conference on Communications (ICC)
Original Kurzfassung:
On a droplet-based Labs-on-Chip
(LoC) device, tiny volumes of fluids, so-called droplets, are flowing in channels of micrometer scale. The droplets contain chemical/biological samples that are processed by different modules on the LoC.
In current solutions, an LoC is a single-purpose device that is designed for a specific application, which limits its flexibility.
In order to realize a multi-purpose system, different modules
are interconnected in a microfluidic network - yielding so-called
Networked LoCs (NLoCs). In NLoCs, the droplets are routed to
the desired modules by exploiting hydrodynamic forces. A well
established topology for NLoCs are ring networks. However, the
addressing schemes provided so far in the literature only allow to address multiple modules by re-injecting the droplet at the source every time, which is a very complex task and increases the risk of ruining the sample. In this work, we address this issue by revising the design of the network nodes, which include the modules. A novel configuration allows that the droplet can
undergo processing several times in cascade by different modules
with a single injection. Simulating the trajectory of the droplets
across the network confirmed the validity of our approach.