Method and apparatus for programmable fluidic processing

1. A method for manipulating a packet, comprising:

positioning a packet on a reaction surface that is coupled to a force generator, the reaction surface and force generator configured to generate dielectrophoretic forces capable of moving a packet about the reaction surface along arbitrarily chosen paths;

reading machine-executable manipulation instructions for a specific fluid processing test from stored data;

executing the manipulation instructions to generate a dielectrophoretic force that moves the packet upon the reaction surface according to the fluid processing test; and

sensing with a position sensor a position of the packet, the position sensor configured to track the position of a packet along arbitrarily chosen paths about the reaction surface.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining if the position of the packet is in error relative to the specific fluid processing test.

3. The method of claim 2 , where determining if the position of the packet is in error comprises determining whether movement of the packet corresponds to a path specified by the manipulation instructions.

4. The method of claim 3 , where the path specified by the manipulation instructions comprises an initial position and a final position.

5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising reporting the error if an error is determined.

6. The method of claim 1 , where the packet comprises a fluid packet, an encapsulated packet, or a solid packet.

7. The method of claim 1 , where generating a dielectrophoretic force comprises applying a driving signal to one or more driving electrodes arranged in an array.

8. The method of claim 1 , where sensing comprises applying a sensing signal to one or more impedance sensing electrodes arranged in an array.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising interacting the packet with another packet, where interacting comprises moving, fusing, merging, mixing, reacting, metering, dividing, splitting, sensing, collecting, or any combination thereof.

10. The method of claim 1 , where the manipulation instructions are part of a subroutine within a library interface.

11. The method of claim 1 , where the manipulation instructions are custom instructions generated using a software interface.

12. A system for manipulating a packet, comprising:

a programmable dielectrophoretic array (PDA);

a computer;

a library interface coupled to the computer and configured to store subroutines for programmably manipulating packets within the PDA;

a software interface coupled to the computer and configured to allow custom programming of instructions for programmably manipulating packets within the PDA;

a position tracking agent coupled to the computer and configured to store, process, and track positions of packets within the PDA; and

a low-level control agent coupled to the computer and configured to provide instructions to the computer;

where the system is configured to generate dielectrophoretic forces capable of moving the packet about the reaction surface along arbitrarily chosen paths; and

where the position tracking agent is configured to track the position of a packet along arbitrarily chosen paths about the reaction surface.

13. An apparatus for manipulating a packet, comprising:

a fluidic device comprising a reaction surface, driving electrodes that generate a dielectrophoretic force on a packet upon the reaction surface, and sensing electrodes that detect a position of the packet upon the reaction surface; and

an integrated circuit coupled to the fluidic device and configured to control the driving and sensing electrodes, the fluidic device configured to generate dielectrophoretic forces capable of moving a packet about the reaction surface along arbitrarily chosen paths, and the fluidic device configured to track the position of a packet along arbitrarily chosen paths about the reaction surface.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , further comprising an interface board coupled to the fluidic device and integrated circuit.

15. The apparatus of claim 13 , the integrated circuit being configured to adjust driving signals to the driving electrodes according to positions of packets determined by the sensing electrodes.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , the integrated circuit being configured to adjust the driving signals to move the packets along arbitrarily chosen paths.