Digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) are increasingly important used for clinical diagnostics drug discovery and point-of-care. Those procedures require high output precision, so the reliability and lifetime of the chips are extremely important. Due to the inherently reconfigurable nature of DMFBs, a degraded electrode may be reused many times. Therefore, the lifetime of the chips is closely related to the total actuation time of an electrode. Thus, the electrode total actuation time needs to be considered carefully in an efficient DMFB design process. This paper proposes an improved whale optimization algorithm (IWOA), which can reduce the excessive use of an electrode and reuse electrodes in an average manner to optimize the longest lifetime of DMFBs. First, the IWOA combined a WOA with a genetic algorithm, and inertial weights were added to enhance the local search ability of the IWOA. Second, the max-min WOA was proposed in the exploration phase. Lastly, the position mass of individual whales was improved to represent the sequence of operations. The simulation experimental results showed that this algorithm was able to solve lifetime optimization problems. The efficiency and convergence performance of the algorithm were very good. The proposed algorithm can achieve maximum improvement in the maximum electrode activation time of 74.6%, 8.2%,15.7% and 7.2% respectively, compared with T-trees algorithm, 3-DDD algorithm, PRSA algorithm and 3D-DDMS algorithm.

数字微流控生物芯片 (DMFB) 在临床诊断药物发现和即时护理中越来越重要。这些程序需要很高的输出精度，因此芯片的可靠性和寿命非常重要。由于 DMFB 固有的可重构特性，退化的电极可以重复使用多次。因此，芯片的寿命与电极的总驱动时间密切相关。因此，在有效的 DMFB 设计过程中需要仔细考虑电极的总驱动时间。本文提出了一种改进的鲸鱼优化算法（IWOA），该算法可以减少电极的过度使用，并以平均的方式重复使用电极，以优化DMFB的最长寿命。首先，IWOA 将 WOA 与遗传算法相结合，并增加了惯性权重以增强 IWOA 的局部搜索能力。其次，在探索阶段提出了最大最小 WOA。最后，改进了单个鲸鱼的位置质量以表示操作顺序。仿真实验结果表明，该算法能够解决寿命优化问题。该算法的效率和收敛性能非常好。与T-trees算法、3-DDD算法、PRSA算法和3D-DDMS算法相比，所提算法的最大电极激活时间分别提高了74.6%、8.2%、15.7%和7.2%。改进了单个鲸鱼的位置质量以表示操作顺序。仿真实验结果表明，该算法能够解决寿命优化问题。该算法的效率和收敛性能非常好。与T-trees算法、3-DDD算法、PRSA算法和3D-DDMS算法相比，所提算法的最大电极激活时间分别提高了74.6%、8.2%、15.7%和7.2%。改进了单个鲸鱼的位置质量以表示操作顺序。仿真实验结果表明，该算法能够解决寿命优化问题。该算法的效率和收敛性能非常好。与T-trees算法、3-DDD算法、PRSA算法和3D-DDMS算法相比，所提算法的最大电极激活时间分别提高了74.6%、8.2%、15.7%和7.2%。