Basic Model for the scheduling problem for scaled up transportation frequencies

Assumption There is an existing correct schedule for an assay. Now, if we scale up the frequencies for transportation operation only, there is a chance of a collision between droplets having intersecting paths.

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Fig. 1

The initial architecture is as drawn in fig.1 with the cells mar ed !M! are mixing modules. "uppose the timing requirement for the top#left corner mixing module is t and that for the other module t! where t! is less than t. $n the original schedule the droplet transportation from the down# right corner module doesn!t collide or with droplet from the other module or violate fluidic constraints. $f the schedule is ept the same, we can see that with scaled up transportation frequency, this may lead to droplet collision or fluidic constraint violation.

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Fig. &

$n fig.& the cell mar ed by '%( shows the current position of the droplet from the down# right corner module. This depicts the scenario that this module has finished execution but the top#left corner module is still in execution.

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Fig. )

Figure ) depicts the possible collision or fluidic constraint violation scenario. The droplet from the top#left corner module travels to the right and the droplet from the down#right corner module travels upwards. %ue to scaled up transportation frequency, the droplets travel faster than the original schedule and therefore, leads to collision.

To overcome this, our goal is to modify the original schedule with minimum perturbation such that the collision or the constraint violations can be eliminated.