Automated Bio Cybernetic System: A Lab-on-Chip case study

Abstract

This paper presents a high level systematic design approach for a distinctive type of application, automated Bio Cybernetic Systems (BCS), which enable experiments to be performed autonomously on live organisms in a Lab-on-Chip platform. The system integrates micro-electro-mechanical, microfluidics and embedded computing technologies into a fully Automated Biochemical Laboratory (ABL) with real-time sensing and actuating capabilities and control of multiple parallel experiments on large number of live organisms to achieve high throughput screening process. The system comprises of multiple concurrent control subsystems, imaging subsystem, higher-level data acquisition and storage system. A system level design language SystemJ is used to model the ABL as a Globally Asynchronous, Locally Synchronous (GALS) system in software and a hardware prototype is successfully built based on the software model.