• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.5C no.6
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• pp.264-269
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• 2005

The electrostatic comb drive actuator is one of the main building blocks in the field of micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Most of the comb actuators presented previously have fingers that are rectangular in shape which produce a stable, constant force output during actuation. The use of sawtooth fixed fingers in a comb drive, which were presumed to produce an increasing force output with displacement due to the increased number of regions where fringing force, the driving force of comb actuators, appear. The dimensions of the sawtooth were derived from finite element analysis (FEA) of simplified finger models with sawtooth type fingers of various dimension and were compared to the rectangular finger model that showed that the sawtooth type fingers have $7\~9$ times stronger driving force. Finally, comb drive actuators with sawtooth type and rectangular fingers were fabricated and although the gap was bigger, the comb actuator with sawtooth type fingers showed about 1.7 times greater electrostatic force than the one with rectangular fingers at equal driving voltages. In conclusion, using the proposed sawtooth type comb fingers in a comb drive makes it possible to increase its displacement or reduce the driving voltage.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2021

Soft fluidic actuators (SFAs) are widely utilized in various areas such as wearable systems due to the inherent compliance which allows safe and flexible interaction. However, SFA-driven systems generally require a large pump, multiple valves and tubes, which hinders to develop a miniaturized system with small range of motion. Thus, a highly integrated soft actuator needs to be developed for implementing a compact SFA-driven system. In this study, we propose an electro-hydraulic soft zipping actuator that can be used as a miniature pump. This actuator exerts tactile force as a dielectric liquid contained inside the actuator pressurized its deformable part. In addition, the proposed actuator can estimate the internal dielectric liquid thickness by using its self-sensing function. Besides, the electrical characteristics and driving performance of the proposed system were verified through experiments.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.153-160
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• 1999

Dual-stage servo system for super-high density HDD has the chances of being composed of the coarse actuator(VCM) for track-seeking control and the fine actuator(microactuator) for-following control in near future. This paper presents the concept design of dual-stage servo system and the track-following control using an electrostatic microactuator for super-high density HDD. The electrostatic microactuator is designed and fabricated by MEMS(micro-electro-mechanical system) process. Both the nonlinear plant(voltage/displacement-to-electrostatic force) and the linear plant(electrostatic force-to-displacement) of the microactuator are established. Inverse function of the nonlinear plant is employed for a feedforward nonlinear compensator design. And feedforward control effect of this compensator is shown by time-domain experiments. A track-following feedback controller is designed using the feedback nonlinear compensator which is derived from the feedforward nonlinear compensator. The track-following control experiment is done to show the control efficiency of the proposed control system. And, excellent track-following control performance(2.21kHz servo-bandwidth, 7.51dB gain margin, $50.98^{\circ}$phase margin) is achieved by the proposed control system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.686-689
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• 2005

A numerical simulation method is developed to analyze the dynamic response of a cantilever switch, which is driven by electrostatic force and a basic component of electro-mechanical coupled system. First, point-charges model on conductor is proposed as a lumped parameter of electrical part. Then, this model is easily incorporated into a multi-body dynamics analysis algorithm, the generalized recursive dynamics formula previously developed by our research group. The resulting motion of a coupled overall system is formulated as a differential algebraic equation form including electrical and mechanical variables together. The equation is simultaneously solved in every time step. To implement this approach into the useful dynamics analysis tool, we used multibody dynamics software (RecurDyn) based on the generalized recursive formula using relative coordinate. The developed numerical simulation tool is evaluated by applying to many different driving condition and switch configuration. The final analysis model will be added to RecurDyn as a basic module for dynamics analysis of electro-mechanical coupled system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.743-748
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• 2015

This paper reports the enhanced fabrication and characterization of a $3{\times}3$ array tactile actuator composed of cellulose acetate. The array tactile actuator, with dimensions of $15{\times}15{\times}1mm^3$, consists of 9 pillar-supported cells made from a cellulose-acetate molding. The fabrication process and performance test along with the results for the suggested actuator are explained. To improve the cell-array fabrication, a laser cut was adopted after the molding process. The displacement of the unit cell increased the input voltage and frequency. Various top masses are added onto the actuator to mimic the touch force, and the acceleration of the actuator is measured under actuation. When 2 kV is applied to the actuator, the maximum acceleration is 0.64 g, which is above the vibrotactile threshold. The actuation mechanism is associated with the electrostatic force between the top and bottom electrodes.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1988.10b
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• pp.964-968
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• 1988

In mechanical systems in which the dynamics of armatures is dominated by electrostatic forces, motions will generally be unstable. This paper deals with the control problems of this kind of micro electrostatic device systems. In these systems, the mass of micro mechanical parts is so small that the inertia term in the equation of motion is negligible. However, nonlinear terms, such as friction and driving force, become dominant. The purpose of this paper is to realize the stable motion without delay and, overshoot etc. A micro-mechanical system used in this paper consists of a plane wafer with striped electrodes converted with an insulation layer and thin cylindrical roller is placed over on it. The performance of motions is confirmed by some simulations.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.29-29
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• 1996

This paper describes a new automated simulation system for micromachines whose size range $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-3}$ m. An automic finite element (FE) mesh generation technique, which is bases on the fuzzy knowledge processing and computation al geometry technique, is incorporated into the system, together with one of commerical FE analysis codes, MARC, and one of commerical solid modelers, Designbase. The system allows a geometry model of concern to be automatically converted to different FE models, depending on physical phenomena of micromachines to be analyzed, i,e. electrostatic analysis, stress analysis, modal analysis and so on. The FE models are then automatically analyzed using the FE analysis code. Among a whole process of analysis, the definition of a geometry model, the designation of local node patterns and the assignment of material properties and boundary conditions onto the geometry model are only the interactive process to be done by a user. The interactive operations can be processed in a few minutes. The other processes which are time consuming and labour-intensive in conventional CAE systems are fully automatically performed in a popular engineering workstation environment. This automated simulation system is successfully applied to evaluate an electrostatic micro wobble actuator.

• Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.28-42
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• 1996

This paper describes a new automated simulation system for micromachines whose size range $10^{-6}$ to $10^{-3}$ m. An automic finite element (FE) mesh generation technique, which is bases on the fuzzy knowledge processing and computation al geometry technique, is incorporated into the system, together with one of commerical FE analysis codes, MARC ,and one of commerical solid modelers, Designbase. The system allows a geometry model of concern to be automatically converted to different FE models, depending on physical phenomena of micromachines to be analyzed , i,e. electrostatic analysis, stress analysis, modal analysis and so on. The FEmodels are then automatically analyzed using the FE analysis code, Among a whole process of analysis, the definition of a geometry model, the designation of local node patterns and the assignment of material properties and boundary conditions onto the geometry model are only the interactive process to be done by a user. The interactive operations can be processed in a few minutes. The other processes which are time consuming and labour-intensive in conventional CAE systems are fully automatically performed in a popular engineering workstation environment. This automated simulation system is successfully applied to evaluate an electrostatic micro wobble actuator.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.360-366
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• 2013

For conventional electrical actuators, the materials are mainly made up of metals, which mean they are prone to corrosion and electrical sparking. Replacing these systems with polymer metal composite based materials can be solved both problems. Considering their excellent electromechanical property, low device fabrication cost, light weight, and good electrical conductivity, the actuator based on ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) was fabricated using Nafion film, NaOH 0.1 molar solution, and Au electrode. IPMCs exhibit good electrostatic property which means they can in principle be used in making actuators based on electromechanical motions. The resistance measurements of Nafion film after soaking in NaOH and deionized water were demonstrated and compared each other. The result of sample soaked in NaOH showed better electrical conductivity than in deionized water. The fabricated IPMC actuator exhibits a large deformation of bending displacement of approximately 9 mm with applied low AC voltage 6.89 V at 2.84 Hz. The result of computer simulation was also very similar and shown as a bending displacement of 8.6085 mm.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.986-990
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• 2004

In this paper, we propose a method to estimate the actuating voltage of the nanotweezer made by manual assembly using carbon nanotube. The nanotweezer is composed of two CNT arms that are made by the multiwalled carbon nanotube and tungsten tip. Since the each CNT arm has the macro actuator, the nanotweezer can manipulate a large particle and it is possible to close and open the CNT arm repeatedly. The closing voltage, i.e., actuating voltage is calculated using the capacitance between the carbon nanotubes in CNT arm. We demonstrate the actuation of the nanotweezer using the voltage calculated with the electrostatic force.