Exploring speed and energy tradeoffs in droplet transport for digital microfluidic biochips

This paper transforms the problem of droplet routing for digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) from the discrete into the continuous domain, based on the observation that droplet transport velocity is a function of the actuation voltage applied to electrodes that control the devices. A new formulation of the DMFB droplet routing problem is introduced for the continuous domain, which attempts to minimize total energy consumption while meeting a timing constraint. Henceforth, DMFBs should be viewed as continuous, highly integrated cyber-physical systems that interact with and manipulate physical quantities, as opposed to inherently discrete and fully synchronized devices.