Interdisciplinary considerations on the design of MEMS actuators from a perspective of their optimality

Various phenomena are emerging in existing micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). In order to fully exploit the potential of such systems, a synergy of multiple engineering fields should be reached through a careful analysis of the designed system and its optimization. It is common practice that complex multi-physics finite element method (FEM)-based models are created to analyze the system. Nevertheless, without a clear understanding of the occurred phenomena, an optimal design will be hard to attain. In this paper, we demonstrate that only minimal design changes in existing MEMS actuators can potentially lead to noticeable improvements of the system. We present a case study considering an electrostatic rotational parallel-plate actuator under sliding mode control. This type of actuator is one of the most successful commercial examples of this actuator widely applied in MEMS-based optical switches. The results of this paper confirm that the control strategy of the actuator is a substantial part of the system and should be taken into account; specifically, it can affect the parameters of the designed actuator in order to modify the dynamics of the system in a desired way. In our case, this can reduce the amplitude of output chattering or reduce the switching time of the actuator. Moreover, this paper points out various design flaws, namely when synergy between various system requirements was not reached successfully and only a suboptimal solution was discovered.