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Encyclopedia of Wireless Networks pp 1–7Cite as

Communications and Networking in Droplet-Based Microfluidic Systems

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Synonyms

Lab-on-a-chip; Tiny volumes of fluids; Two-phase flow microfluidics

Definition

Tiny volumes of fluids, so-called droplets, are used for communication and/or networking purposes in microfluidic chips.

Historical Background

Communications in microfluidic channels is a type of molecular communication. In Bicen and Akyildiz (2014), the transport of molecules that are dispersed into a continuous fluid in a microfluidic channel has been investigated. In droplet-based microfluidics, droplets flow in microfluidic channels inside an immiscible continuous flow. The droplets can be independently controlled and manipulated, paving the way for communications, computing, and networking in microfluidic chips.

Droplet-Based Communications

The idea of encoding/decoding of information using droplets has been, for the first time, introduced in Fuerstman et al. (2007). In particular, the distance between two droplets has been used for information encoding, and experimental results have been...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria

    Werner Haselmayr

  2. University of Padova, Padua, Italy

    Andrea Zanella

  3. University of Catania, Catania, Italy

    Giacomo Morabito

Authors
  1. Werner Haselmayr
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  2. Andrea Zanella
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  3. Giacomo Morabito
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Werner Haselmayr .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo , Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Xuemin (Sherman) Shen

  2. Faculty of Business and Information Technology, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON, Canada

    Xiaodong Lin

  3. Dpt.of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Omaha, NE, USA

    Kuan Zhang

Section Editor information

  1. University of Warwick, UK, Warwick, UK

    Adam Noel

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Cite this entry

Haselmayr, W., Zanella, A., Morabito, G. (2019). Communications and Networking in Droplet-Based Microfluidic Systems. In: Shen, X., Lin, X., Zhang, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wireless Networks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32903-1_313-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32903-1_313-1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32903-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32903-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Computer SciencesReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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