• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers A
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.773-780
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• 1999

A digital tracking controller is proposed for micro electrostatic actuator with input nonlinearity, where disturbance observer is utilized in cooperation with inverse function. Generally the disturbance observer is announced to be robust to modeling uncertainty, and external disturbance. But, when the nonlinearity exists in the systems, the disturbance observer may not directly be applied to that system, because the nonlinearity may destabilize the overall system. Therefore, first, we linearize the nonlinear input characteristics of micro electrostatic actuator by the use of inverse function. Secondly, we apply disturbance observer to approximately linearized system for eliminating the residuals of nonlinearity and the modeling uncertainty. Then, we get the good properties of the disturbance rejection as well as the robustness due to the own nature of disturbance observer. In this case, we propose a sufficient condition for the robust stability of overall systems. Furthermore, we discuss the problem that may be exposed when disturbance observer is applied to the internally stable system with saturation, and analyze two methods to overcome input saturation problem in the sense of internal stability. Simulations have been carried out to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2008

The restrictor, which is a fluid channel from a reservoir to a chamber inside a thermal micro actuator, has been fabricated using ArF and KrF excimer lasers, Diode-Pumped Solid State Lasers (DPSSL) and femtosecond lasers for a feasibility study. A numerical model of fluid dynamics for the actuator chamber and restrictor is presented. The model includes bubble formation and growth, droplet ejection through nozzle, and dynamics of fluid refill through the restrictor from a reservoir. Since an optimized and well-fabricated restrictor is important for a high frequency actuator, some special beam delivery setups and post processing techniques have been researched and developed. The effects of variations of the restrictor length, diameter, and tapered shapes are simulated and the results are analyzed to determine the optimal design. The numerical results of droplet velocity and volume are compared with the experimental results of a cylindrical-shaped actuator. It is found that the micro actuators having tapered restrictors show better high frequency characteristics than those having a cylindrical shape without any notable decrease of droplet volume. The laser-fabricated restrictors demonstrate initial feasibility for the laser direct ablation technique although more development is required.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1996.07c
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• pp.2004-2006
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• 1996

A thermally driven polysilicon micro actuator has been fabricated using surface micromachining techniques. It consists of P-doped polysilicon as a structural layer and TEOS (tetracthylorthosilicate) as a sacrificial layer. The polysilicon was annealed for the relaxation of residual stress which is the main cause to its deformation such as bending and buckling. And the newly developed HF VPE (vapor phase etching) process was also used as an effective release method for the elimination of sacrificial TEOS layer. The thickneas of polysilicon is $2{\mu}m$ and the lengths of active and passive polysilicon cantilevers are $500{\mu}m$ and $260{\mu}m$, respectively. The actuation is incurred by die thermal expansion due to the current flow in the active polysilicon cantilever, which motion is amplified by lever mechanism. The moving distance of polysilicon micro actuator was experimentally conformed as large as $21{\mu}m$ at the input voltage level of 10V and 50Hz square wave. The actuating characteristics are investigated by simulating the phenomena of heat transfer and thermal expansion in the polysilicon layer. The displacement of actuator is analyzed to be proportional to the square of input voltage. These micro actuator technology can be utilized for the fabrication of MEMS (microelectromechanical system) such as micro relay, which requires large displacement or contact force but relatively slow response.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.26 no.10
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• pp.2187-2193
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• 2002

We present a novel method for 3D microfabrication with LIGA process that utilizes a deep X-ray mask in which a micro-actuator is integrated. The integrated micro-actuator oscillates the X-ray absorber, which is formed on the shuttle mass of the micro-actuator, during X-ray exposures to modify the absorbed dose profile in X-ray resist, typically PMMA. 3D PMMA microstructures according to the modulated dose contour are revealed after GG development. An X-ray mask with integrated comb drive actuator is fabricated using deep reactive ion etching, absorber electroplating, and bulk micromachining with silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. 1mm $\times$ 1 mm, 20 $\mu$m thick silicon shuttle mass as a mask blank is supported by four 1 mm long suspension beams and is driven by the comb electrodes. A 10 $\mu$m thick, 50 $\mu$m line and spaced gold absorber pattern is electroplated on the shuttle mass before the release step. The fundamental frequency and amplitude are around 3.6 kHz and 20 $\mu$m, respectively, for a do bias of 100 V and an ac bias of 20 $V_{p-p}$ (peak-peak). Fabricated PMMA microstructure shows 15.4 $\mu$m deep, S-shaped cross section in the case of 1.6 kJ $cm^{-3}$ surface dose and GG development at 35$^{\circ}C$ for 40 minutes.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.19
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• pp.9-14
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• 1999

The voice coil actuator uses the Lorentz force between the magnetic field of the permanent magnets and the electromagnets to the motions and positioning. The small size, light weight and fast dynamic response of the these type actuators lead to admit them in the micro-positioning apparatus of the micro-machining systems. In this paper, the linear motion voice coil actuator is developed for the driving and positioning the rotating electrode of the electric discharge machine (EDM). The analyzed and measured results for the actuator are compared and discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.458-461
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• 2005

In this paper, a new type of inchworm motion actuator is developed in fabrication of actuators for micro-press machine. This is consisted of three piezoelectric actuators, one is for moving the tool guide and the other are for clamping the guide. The inchworm motor provides both high load and large displacement in small size actuator. PZT has compressive strength and often fails under tensile stress and pulling. Thus, in order to prevent failure, we have designed pre-load housing and accomplished FEM analysis. The pre-load housing was used for determining the optimal design condition by comparing the von-mises stresses with the change of hinge stiffness. Also, in order to predict the performance of the motor under certain conditions, the system model was simulated using MATLAB. This is open loop control actuator and driven by the period of input voltage.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1796-1801
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• 2001

For micro-machines, very few design methodologies based on optimization hale been developed so far. To overcome the difficulties of design optimization of micro-machines, the search method for multi-dimensional design window (DW)s is proposed. The proposed method is defined as areas of satisfactory design solutions in a design parameter space, using both continuous evolutionary algorithms (CEA) and the modified K-means clustering algorithm . To demonstrate practical performance of the proposed method, it was applied to an optimal shape design of micro electrostatic actuator of optical memory. The shape design problem has 5 design parameters and 5 objective functions, and finally shows 4 specific design shapes and design characters based on the proposed DWs.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.298-304
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• 2003

IPMC(Ionic Polymer-Metal Composite) is a highly sensitive actuator that shows a large deformation in presence of low applied voltage. Generally, IPMC can be fabricated by electroless plating of platinum on both sides of a Nafion (perfluorosulfonic acid) film. When a commercial Nafion film is used as a base structure of the IPMC membrane, the micro-pump structure and the IPMC membrane are fabricated separately and then later assembled, which makes the fabrication inefficient. Therefore, fabrication of an IPMC membrane and the micro-pump structure on a single wafer without the need of assembly have been developed. The silicon wafer was partially etched to hold liquid Nafion to be casted and a 60-${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ thick IPMC membrane was realized. IPMC membranes with various size were fabricated by casting and they showed 4-2${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ displacements from $4mm{\times}4mm$ , $6mm{\times}6mm$, $8mm{\times}8mm$ membranes at the applied voltage ranging from 2Vp-p to 5Vp-p at 0.5Hz. The displacement of the fabricated IPMC membranes is fairly proportional to the membrane area and the applied voltage.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.463-467
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• 2004

This paper presents the fabrication possibility of the micro actuator which uses a micro-thermal bubble, generated b micro-heater under pulse heating. The valve-less micropump using the diffuser/nozzle is consists of the lower plate, he middle plate, the upper plate. The lower plate includes the channel and chamber are fabricated on high processability silicon wafer by the DRIE(Deep Reactive Ion Etching) process. The middle plate includes the chamber and diaphragm d the upper plate is the micro-heater. The Micropump is fabricated by bonding process of the three layer. This paper resented the possibility of the PCR chip operation by the fabricated micropump.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.07c
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• pp.2083-2086
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• 2004

Variable Structure Controller with effective tracking performance is propose to control micro actuator system. Propsed VSC(Variable Structure Control) technique is implemented to tracking control of comb driving system having high non-linearity. The tracking performance due to VSC technique is compared to conventional PD(Proportional Derivative) control technique, reveals improved results.