Real-time flow-rate control system for cell analysis

Abstract

On-chip cell analysis is an important issue for microtechnology research. One approach to controlling the fluid flow in microfluidic devices for cell analysis is to use a suitable pump. However, it is difficult to control the actual flow rate in a microfluidic device because of the difficulty of placing flow rate sensors in the device. In this work, we developed a real-time flow-rate control system that uses syringe pumps and high-speed vision to measure the actual fluid flow in microfluidic devices. The developed flow-rate control system was verified through experiments on microparticle velocity control and microparticle sorting.