Microfluidic Time-Division Multiple Access Resistive Pulse Sensor for Particle Analysis
Open Access
Author:
Murphy, Erica Angela
Area of Honors:
Electrical Engineering
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Dr. Weihua Guan, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Julio V. Urbina, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Resistive pulse sensing Lab-on-a-chip TDMA Digital hardware Analog hardware LabVIEW MATLAB PCB design
Abstract:
This research applies the principle of time-division multiple access (TDMA) to resistive pulse sensing to realize a scalable, multichannel system for microparticle analysis. Particles are pumped through an eight-channel microfluidic device designed for enhanced throughput. Multiplexing hardware combines signals from each of the eight channels into a single electrical output for low-cost data acquisition. A de-multiplexing software algorithm recovers the eight signals for particle analysis on each channel. When tested with polystyrene beads, the system can detect single particles and differentiate particles by size. The success of this TDMA-based approach demonstrates the potential for a resistive pulse sensing system with an arbitrary number of microfluidic channels and a single output to a data acquisition device. Such an accomplishment is integral to the development of portable, affordable devices for cell counting.