Innovative Micro Fluidic Modular Assemblies for Breakthrough in Miniaturization of Engineering Products

Advances have been made recently for the miniaturization of executive drives such as motors, pumps, etc. Examples include the areas of MEMS-Microfluidics and Mini Hydraulic and Pneumatic Drives (Mini H/P-D). Such advances help promote the downsizing of executive drives from the macro scale to the meso scale.

Additional miniaturization, however, faces some challenges, namely:

- The vulnerability of the control parts of mini-drives to harmful environmental or man-made stimuli as heat fluxes, humidity, vibrations, electro-magnetic and radiation fields, liquid and gaseous corrosive chemicals, whose influence becomes more dangerous with miniaturization;

- Maintaining the high value of transmission capacity of the executive parts of the drives. CTRL's development of the Jet Pneumatic-Hydraulic Amplifier (JPHA) technology may be used to overcome such challenges, thereby promoting the further miniaturization of executive drives, even to the micro scale. Additionally, JPHA does so without the use of moving mechanical parts and electrical elements.

The CTRL solution for the promotion of miniaturization is to use the embodiment of JPHA technology in a Microfluidic Modular Assembly. Such an assembly is comprised of the following:

- Microfluidic Platform (MFP) whose input signal can be of any physical, chemical, or biological origin* and whose output is a low power hydraulic or pneumatic signal

- Interface Transducer, namely JPHA embodiment, that converts the low power output signal from MFP into a relatively high powered hydraulic signal, capable of activating any hydraulically operated valve-type control unit

- Control Unit of Mini H/P-D *Input signal for activation by light, heat, sound, smell, etc.