title: Modeling of a high force density fishbone shaped electrostatic comb drive microactuator.
abstract: This paper presents the design and evaluation of a high force density fishbone shaped electrostatic comb drive actuator. This comb drive actuator has a branched structure similar to a fishbone, which is intended to increase the capacitance of the electrodes and hence increase the electrostatic actuation force. Two-dimensional finite element analysis was used to simulate the motion of the fishbone shaped electrostatic comb drive actuator and compared against the performance of a straight sided electrostatic comb drive actuator. Performances of both designs are evaluated by comparison of displacement and electrostatic force. For both cases, the active area and the minimum gap distance between the two electrodes were constant. An active area of 800 × 300 μm, which contained 16 fingers of fishbone shaped actuators and 40 fingers of straight sided actuators, respectively, was used. Through simulation, improvement of drive force of the fishbone shaped electrostatic comb driver is approximately 485% higher than conventional electrostatic comb driver. These results indicate that the fishbone actuator design provides good potential for applications as high force density electrostatic microactuator in MEMS systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Megat Muhammad Ikhsan
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Megat Hasnan
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Mohd Faizul
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Mohd Sabri
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Suhana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mohd Said
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Nik Nazri
authors.initials: NN
authors.lastname: Nik Ghazali
mesh_terms: D025802:Electric Capacitance; D004867:Equipment Design; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D055617:Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D055672:Static Electricity