Microfluidic devices that utilize a multitude of integrated microvalves are capable of complex on-chip fluid handling operations, including metering, storage, and serial dilution. However, such devices typically require numerous chip-to-world interfaces, which in turn connect to unwieldy off-chip pneumatic and electronic components. While this control method is suitable for many functions, there are several applications (e.g. point-of-care diagnostics) where this setup is not ideal. However, basic control logic can be constructed on the chip itself in the form of pneumatic digital logic circuits, this eliminating dependence on off-chip controllers.;The end goal of this integration of digital logic in microfluidics is the reduction of off-chip complexity to the point where only a single chip-to-world connection to a constant vacuum is required to serve as the power source for such a device. To achieve this goal, we propose a fully autonomous pneumatically-driven microfluidic system, consisting of an on-chip oscillator, a timer, a finite state machine, and a fluid handling system.;As the on-chip oscillator and finite state machine are mainly the work of other colleagues, this thesis focuses on the creation of a pneumatic counter and a semi-autonomous fluid handling system, in addition to a basic pneumatic decoder and various programming projects to assist with device testing and analysis.
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