A heuristic method for co-optimization of pin assignment and droplet routing in digital microfluidic biochip

Abstract

Design automation in Digital microfluidic biochip is of immense importance in todays clinical diagnosis process. In this paper, we try to build a heuristic algorithm to simultaneously perform droplet routing and electrode actuation. The proposed method is capable of performing (i)droplet routing with minimal electrode usages in optimized routing completion time, and (ii)minimal number of control pin assignment on the routing path for successful droplet transportation. The proposed method is a co-optimization technique that finds the possible shortest path between the source and the target pair for a droplet and assigns control pins in an optimal manner to actuate the routing path. Intersection regions for multiple droplets are also assigned with pins in an efficient manner to avoid unnecessary mixing between several droplets. The proposed method is tested on various benchmarks and random test sets, and experimental results are quite encouraging. © 2012 IEEE.