Abstract Physical Sciences and Engineering Division Mechanical Engineering Department Master of Science Optimisation of Lagrangian Flash Flood Microsensors Dropped by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle by Mohammed Abdulaal Floods are the most common natural disasters, causing thousands of casualties every year in the world. In particular, ash ood events are particularly deadly because of the short timescales on which they occur. Classical sensing solutions such as xed wireless sensor networks or satellite imagery are either too expensive or too inaccurate. Nevertheless, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles equipped with mobile microsensors could be capable of sensing ash oods in real time for a low overall cost, saving lives and greatly improving the e ciency of the emergency response. Using ood simulation data, we show that this system could be used to detect ash oods. We also present an ongoing implementation of this system using 3D printed sensors and sensor delivery systems on a UAV testbed as well as some preliminary results.

Micro-channels are very important in bio-medical and cooler research. Although many research have been conducted with micro-channels, few results have been contributed to discuss the properties of fluids inside a micro-channel. For example, the thermal distribution of the fluid in a micro-channel is only simulated with numerical analysis approach. In our research, we aim to design a device that can measure real thermal data within a micro-channel. We first applied excimer laser lithography on a PMMA substrate to fabricate a micro-channel with 20 mm length, 200£gm width and 200£gm depth. Micro-heater and micro-thermal sensor is than fabricated by sputtering pt thin-thim with PVD process on a glass substrate. Finally, these devices were assembled with UV-curing and than applied for further testing. According to our experiment, lift-off process cannot be easily applied to fabricate micro-heater and micro-thermal sensor since the architecture of these devices were fragile in metal line sidewalls. Wet-lithography is than used to conquer this problem. Our primary test on this micro-thermal sensor shows that its resistance varies with thermal changes. Such mechanism can be applied to measuring thermal field in a micro-channel.

Cette thèse traite un sujet pluridisciplinaire, la conception d’un prototype de micro-capteur biologique pour la détection des anticorps de patients susceptibles d'être allergiques.Elle a pour objectif la miniaturisation de la méthode ELISA pour « Enzyme Linked Immune Sorbent Assay » en concevant en « full-custom », avec une technologie CMOS APS, un capteur colorimétrique. Ce capteur est posé en dessous un système micro fluidique contenant l’échantillon biologique à tester, le tout est illuminé via une fibre optique. Le détecteur capte la lumière qui a traversé le micro-tube contenant l’échantillon. Les courants photoniques induits sont liés à la concentration et la coloration de la solution. Le virage colorimétrique de la réaction enzymatique, due à la présence des anticorps dans le sérum, et l’évaluation quantitative de la concentration seront déterminée par la mesure de ces photo-courants. Le capteur pourrait contenir une matrice de 20x20 pixels de détecteurs de couleur ainsi que leur électronique de lecture et de commande. Pour des raisons de coûts, nous avons validé le procédé à l’aide d’une matrice de 4x4 pixels de détecteur de couleur. La réalisation du circuit a été suivie par une caractérisation électrique et colorimétrique. La caractérisation électrique a permis de valider le fonctionnement du bloc de commande du circuit ainsi que celui du pixel (l’électronique de lecture, BDJ). Les résultats de mesures concordent avec ceux de simulations. La caractérisation colorimétrique consiste à mesurer le virage colorimétrique de deux solutions différentes. Les mesures ont pu montrer que notre capteur est plus sensible que le spectromètre utilisé pour mesurer la concentration des deux solutions. Ainsi ce travail de recherche a contribué à la miniaturisation d’une bio-puce colorimétrique dédiée aux tests immunologiques basée sur la méthode ELISA. / This PhD treats a multidisciplinary subject based on the design of a biological micro-sensor prototype for the detection of antibodies of patients susceptible to be allergic.The goal has been the miniaturization of the ELISA "Enzyme Linked Immune Sorbent Assay" method, designing in integrated full-custom colorimetric sensor with a CMOS APS technology. This sensor is installed below a microfluidic system containing the biological test sample, the whole is illuminated via an optical fiber. The sensor detects the light passed through the micro reservoir containing the sample, the induced photo-currents is related to the concentration of the solution. The color change of the enzyme reaction due to the presence of antibodies in the serum, and the quantitative evaluation of the concentration will be determined by the measurement of the induced photo-currents. The sensor may contain a matrix of 20x20 color detector pixels and their reading and control electronics. For cost reasons, we validated the method using a matrix of 4 x 4 pixels of color detectors.The design of electrical device was followed by a colorimetric and electrical characterizations. The latter was used to validate the operation of the control block of the circuit as well as that of the pixel (readout electronics, BDJ). The results brought by measurements are in good agreement with those obtained through simulations. The colorimetric characterization consists in measuring the intensity of the color of two different solutions of different colors. These measurements have shown that our sensor is more sensitive than a spectrometer. Therefore, this research work has contributed to the miniaturization of a colorimetric sensor and its electronic part for the Immunoassay based on the ELISA method.