One of the bottlenecks limiting the data density in conventional disk drives is the resonant frequency of the suspension arm connecting the actuator and the read-write elements. In this paper we present a compliant transmission to be integrated with a secondary microactuator to deal with this limitation. The compliant transmission was designed to reduce overall footprint. This paper presents an...

A novel electrostatic inchworm microactuator, which employs both a built-in mechanical transformation and a large number of contraction units to generate large force and sub-micrometer resolution step, is presented. The actuator is fabricated in a single polysilicon device layer using a trench isolation technology. The entire actuator, including the clamps and the contraction element, fits in a...

We report design and fabrication process of MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) actuators for a new type of optical switch integrated with photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides. Thin film poly-silicon electrostatic microactuator (either a cantilever or a bridge style) is placed over a PhC waveguide to induce optical modulation by means of mechanical motion in the evanescent fields. For low volt...

This paper deals with a novel magnetic microactuator. Its moving part is a permanent magnet in unstable levitation between two stable positions, and thus its central position must be precisely controlled. A cm-scale prototype was built to test the dynamic behaviour of the device. The quaternion algebra is used to describe the 3D movement of the moving magnet. A PD controller for position contro...

A laser opto-microactuator has been proposed as an Optical Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (OMEMS). The rotational or twisting mechanisms of the microactuator have been discussed. For increasing the sensitivity of the actuator, the temperature difference between the front and rear blade surfaces of the actuator should be increased. Therefore, high absorption rates on the blade surface with las...

In this article the modeling aspects of an electrostatic microactuator (μ-A) with squeezed thin film damping effects are presented. The μ-A is composed of a microcapacitor whose one plate is clamped on the ground while the other plate is floating on the air. Its highly nonlinear dynamic model is linearized at various operating points. A robust PID-controller is designed with its parameters-tuni...

This paper presents a technique to design a robust polynomial RST controller for parametric uncertain systems. The uncertain parameters are assumed to be bounded by intervals. The computation of the controller is addressed by introducing the interval arithmetic. The controller synthesis is formulated as a set inversion problem that can be solved using the SIVIA algorithm. The proposed method is...