Multi-level and multi-objective design optimisation of a MEMS bandpass filter

Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) design is often complex, containing multiple disciplines but also conflicting objectives. Designers are often faced with the problem of balancing what objectives to focus upon and how to incorporate modeling and simulation tools across multiple levels of abstraction in the design optimization process. In particular due to the computational expense of some of these simulation methods there are restrictions on how much optimization can occur. In this paper we aim to demonstrate the application of multi-objective and multi-level design optimisation strategies to a MEMS bandpass filter. This provides for designers the ability to evolve solutions that can match multiple objectives. In order to address the problem of a computationally expensive design process a novel multi-level evaluation strategy is developed. In addition a new approach for bandpass filter modeling and optimization is presented based up the electrical equivalent circuit method. In order to demonstrate this approach a comparison is made to previous attempts to design similar bandpass filters. Results are comparable in design but at a significant reduction in functional evaluations, needing only 10,000 functional evaluations in comparison to 2.6 million with the previous work.