• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• 제5C권6호
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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.

• 한국시뮬레이션학회논문지
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• 제5권1호
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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.

• 한국시뮬레이션학회논문지
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• 제5권1호
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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.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2003년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.246-250
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• 2003

In this study, two new types of micro-grippers in which micro-fingers are actuated by piezoelectric multi-layer benders and stacks are introduced for the manipulation of micrometer-sized objects. First, we constructed a 3-chopstick-mechanism tungsten gripper, which is composed of three chopsticks: two are designed to grip micro-objects, and tile third is used to help grasp and release the objects through overcoming especially electrostatic force among some surface effects including electrostatic, van der Waals forces and surface tension. Second, a 2-chopstick-mechanism silicon micro-gripper that uses an integrated force sensor to control the gripping force was developed. The micro-gripper is composed of a piezoelectric multilayer bender for actuating the gripper fingers, silicon fingertips fabricated by use of silicon-based micromachining, and supplementary supports. The micro-gripper is referred to as a hybrid-type micro-gripper because it is composed of two main components; micro-fingertips fabricated using micromachining technology to integrate a very sensitive force sensor for measuring the gripping force, and piezoelectric gripper finger actuators that are capable of large gripping forces and moving strokes. The gripping force signal was found to have a sensitivity of 667 N/V. To the design of each of components of both of the grippers. a systematic design approach was applied, which made it possible to establish the functional requirements and design parameters of the micro-grippers. The micro-grippers were installed on a manual manipulator to assess its performance in tasks such as moving micro-objects from one position to a desired position. The experiment showed that the micro-grippers function effectively.

• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제22권2호
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• pp.180-187
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• 2005

This paper is focused on the development of the flexible electrode for disc-type polymer actuators using Segmented Polyurethane(SPU). This paper consists of two parts. The one is about the mechanical property such as elastic modulus. these parameters mainly affect behaviors of polymer actuators and the other is about the electro-chemical property such as the surface resistance of the composite electrode affects the strength of electrostatic force, results in the deformation of polymer actuators. The Young's modulus was measured by UTM. As result, by increasing the modulus of a body of polymer actuators, the maximum displacement of polymer actuators are decreased. The surface resistance of the electrode was measured by 4 point probe system. Compared with the conductive silver grease, the displacement of polymer actuators using carbon black(CB) composite electrodes is comparably small but CB composite electrode should be the practical approach for the improvement of the performance of all-solid actuators, compared with another types of electrode materials.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• 제17권2호
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• pp.92-97
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• 2016

This paper presents design and simulation of wide band RF microswitch that uses electrostatic actuation for its operation. RF MEMS devices exhibit superior high frequency performance in comparison to conventional devices. Similar techniques that are used in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) can be employed to design and fabricate MEMS devices and traditional batch-processing methods can be used for its manufacturing. The proposed switch presents a novel design approach to handle reliability concerns in MEMS switches like dielectric charging effect, micro welding and stiction. The shape has been optimized at actuation voltage of 14-16 V. The switch has an improved restoring force of 20.8 μN. The design of the proposed switch is very elemental and primarily composed of electrostatic actuator, a bridge membrane and coplanar waveguide which are suspended over the substrate. The simple design of the switch makes it easy for fabrication. Typical insertion and isolation of the switch at 1 GHz is -0.03 dB and -71 dB and at 85 GHz it is -0.24 dB and -29.8 dB respectively. The isolation remains more than - 20 db even after 120 GHz. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of a metal contact switch that shows such a high and sustained isolation and performance at W-band frequencies with an excellent figure-of merit (fc=1/2.pi.Ron.Cu =1,900 GHz). This figure of merit is significantly greater than electronic switching devices. The switch would find extensive application in wideband operations and areas where reliability is a major concern.

• Advances in robotics research
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• 제1권1호
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• pp.1-19
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• 2014

Microgripper is an essential device in the micro-operation system. It can convert other types of energy into mechanical energy and produce clamp movement with required chucking force, which enables it a broad application prospect in the domain of tiny components' processing and assembly, biomedicine and optics, etc. The performance of a microgripper is dependent on its power supply, type of drive, mechanism structure, sensing components, and controller. This paper presents a state-of-the-art survey of recent development on flexure-based microgrippers. According to the drive type, the existing microgrippers can be mainly classified as electrostatic microgripper, electrothermal microgripper, electromagnetic microgripper, piezoelectric microgripper, and shape memory alloy microgripper. Additionally, some different mechanisms, sensors, and control methods that are used in microgripper system are reviewed. The key issue of how to choose those components in microgripper system design is also addressed.

• 대한전자공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전자공학회 2005년도 추계종합학술대회
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• pp.147-150
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• 2005

Low actuation voltage and no contact stiction are the important factors to apply MEMS RF switches to mobile devices. Conventional electrostatic MEMS RF switches require several tens of voltages for actuation. In this paper we propose PAS MEMS RF switch which adopt PZT actuators and seesaw cantilevers to meet the above requirements. The fundamental structures of PAS MEMS switch were designed, optimized, and fabricated. Through the developed processes PAS SPDT MEMS RF switches were successfully fabricated on 4" wafers and they showed good electrical properties. The driving voltage was less than 5 volts. And the insertion loss was -0.5dB and the isolation was 35dB at 5GHz. The switching speed was about 5kHz. So these MEMS RF switches can be applicable to mobile communication devices or wireless multi-media devices at lower than 6GHz.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전기학회 2003년도 하계학술대회 논문집 C
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• pp.1923-1925
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• 2003

본 논문은 유리 기판과 실리콘 기판의 양극접합과 CMP공정을 통하여 정전기력으로 구동되는 마이크로 비틀림 액추에이터를 제작하고 이 제작된 액추에이터의 성능을 개선하는 방법과 실험에 관한 것이다. 이 비틀림 액추에이터는 미소 거울로 사용하기 위해 제작하였다. 미소 거울은 영상을 정확히 반사하거나 회절 시키는 것이 목적이지만 MEMS 공정의 특성 문제로 인해 일관적인 성능을 나타내는 것이 비교적 힘들다. 따라서 이를 개선하기 위해선 구조적인 접근 보다 실제 구동될 때의 현상을 보상하는 것이 필요하다. 일정한 입력전압에 비례하는 미소 거울의 변위를 알고 이를 기준으로 하여 시스템을 구동하여야 한다. 여기서 인가되는 전압에 비례하는 변위가 정확한지 측정을 해야 하고 만약 오차가 있다면 이를 개선하여야 한다. 또한 구동 시 발생하는 overshoot 현상과 작은 떨림 현상을 줄이고 빠른 시간 내에 응답하도록 시스템을 보상하여야 한다. 본 논문에선 PID 제어기법을 사용하여 $0.5^{\circ}$의 각도로 구동할 때를 기준으로 이 때의 구동전압 200V를 인가하고 오차를 측정하여 시스템을 보상하였다.