An active heat-based restoring mechanism for improving the reliability of RF-MEMS switches

► We demonstrate an active restoring mechanism for stuck RF-MEMS switches. ► We established a measurement procedure for testing RF-MEMS switches with heaters. ► We demonstrate the effectiveness of the embedded micro-heaters pulsed activation. ► We developed a simulation procedure/methodology for RF-MEMS devices with heaters. ► Mechanical constraints are included for extracting heat-induced restoring forces.