An Innovative Opto-Sensing Workbench for Bio-Microfluidics Monitoring and Control

A non-invasive real-time testing workbench for the opto-electric characterization of microfluidic phenomena and particle transport tracking is proposed. It consists of an automated monitoring of microfluidodynamic phenomena, exploiting suitable opto-sensing setup, analog-digital and analog real-time monitoring, and an adaptive control system. The opto-sensing setup is based on a customized opto-mechanic system designed and developed using discrete optic components mounted on a breadboard. The monitoring system exploits different technologies from standard CCD-based to alternative operation mode based on integrated technology, from hybrid analog/digital architecture to totally analog Cellular Nonlinear Networks (CNNs) technology for sensing and computation process. It exploits the optic information analysis as a mean to extract microfluidic phenomena characteristics. The general purpose design of such system makes it suitable for in vitro and in vivo experimental setup and therefore for microfluidic modelling and applications in the biomedical field and for research studies in microcirculation such as blood flow monitoring.