Available online ,
doi: 10.11999/JEIT251058
Abstract:
Continuous microfluidic biochips are widely used in the biomedical field due to their miniaturisation, high reliability, and low sample consumption. However, as chip integration levels increase, design complexity significantly rises. Traditional stepwise design methods process tasks such as bonding, scheduling, layout, and routing in separate steps, with insufficient information exchange between stages, leading to low-quality solutions and prolonged design cycles. To address this, this paper proposes a one-step architecture synthesis method for continuous microfluidic biochips based on deep reinforcement learning. First, graph convolutional neural networks are used to extract state features, effectively capturing the underlying patterns and characteristics of nodes and their relationships. Second, the proximal policy optimisation algorithm combines the A* algorithm and list scheduling algorithm to ensure the rationality of layout and routing, as well as precise information for operation scheduling, thereby obtaining a specific architectural design solution. Finally, a multi-objective reward function is designed, normalising and weighting the total length of biochemical reaction channels, total channel length, and valve count, and employs the policy gradient update mechanism of the near-term policy optimisation algorithm to efficiently explore the complex decision space. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared to existing methods, the proposed method achieves a 2.1% optimisation in biochemical reaction time, a 21.3% reduction in total channel length, and a 65.0% reduction in valve count on benchmark test cases, while still generating feasible solutions for larger-scale chips. Objective Continuous-flow microfluidic biochips (CFMBs) have gained significant attention in biomedical applications due to their miniaturization, high reliability, and low sample consumption. However, as the integration density of CFMBs increases, the design complexity escalates substantially. Traditional stepwise design methods suffer from performance gaps, resulting in suboptimal solutions, prolonged design cycles, and even feasibility issues in large-scale implementations. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel one-stage architectural synthesis framework for CFMBs by integrating deep reinforcement learning (DRL). The framework leverages graph convolutional neural networks (GCNs) to extract high-dimensional state features and employs the proximal policy optimization (PPO) algorithm to iteratively refine strategies, achieving joint optimization of binding, scheduling, layout, and routing. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms existing approaches in terms of biochemical reaction time, channel length, and valve count, while maintaining scalability for larger chip sizes. Methods The algorithm in this paper integrates all the design tasks of CFMBs into an optimisation framework that is modelled as a Markov decision process, which results in a better solution for the CFMBs architecture than the traditional approach. In this framework, the state space includes the device binding information of all operations, the location of the device, the priority, and other parameters, while the action space can be adjusted for the location of the device, the device to which the operation is bound, and the priority of the operation. The reward function is crucial for the quality of the architectural solution of CFMBs, which takes into account the total biochemical reaction time, the total length of the flow paths, and the number of additional valves introduced to optimise the decision, and these rewards are mainly obtained by combining them with the A* algorithm and the list scheduling algorithm. In addition, the weights influence the quality between the metrics, and each sub-award is normalised and the appropriate weights are set to balance the metrics. Results and Discussions In this paper, the algorithm is based on the current state space as well as the A* algorithm and the list scheduling algorithm to get the architectural solutions of CFMBs, and then new architectural solutions are continuously obtained through the selection of the action space. By defining appropriate reward functions to get more aspectual and better quality CFMBs architecture solutions. The experimental results show that the biochemical reaction time is reduced by an average of 2.1%, the total length of the flow path is reduced by an average of 21.3%, with a maximum reduction of 57.1% in ProteinSplit, and the number of additional valves introduced is reduced by an average of 65.0% compared with the existing methods, which greatly reduces the manufacturing cost and the risk of failure. Conclusions Addressing the design challenges of flow layer architecture for continuous microfluidic biochips, this paper proposes a one-step architecture synthesis method for continuous microfluidic biochips based on deep reinforcement learning. By using graph convolutional neural networks to extract state features, the method effectively captures the underlying connections and characteristics of nodes and their relationships in chip design, transforming the multi-objective optimisation problem in chip design into a sequential decision-making problem. It then employs a proximal policy optimisation algorithm to iteratively update the policy and find the optimal solution, achieving joint optimisation of binding, scheduling, layout, and routing. Experimental results on multiple test cases demonstrate that this method outperforms existing methods in terms of biochemical reaction completion time, total channel length, and the number of additional valves introduced, and can still generate feasible solutions on larger-scale chips.