Electromechanical Coupling between Comb-Drive Actuators and Charge Pump Converters

The present work deals with the description and the modelling of the electromechanical interactions between comb-drive actuators and a charge pump during transient phases. Comb-drive actuators is one of the most common electrostatic actuators used in MEMS devices. Because of their reduced size and power needs, they are particularly well appropriate for nomadic applications. From previous works, charge pump converter seems to be one of the best way to provide the high voltage needed by the actuator from low power sources like commercial batteries. Until now most of the reported works has been focused either on optimizing mechanical performances of actuators or enhancing electrical efficiency of power supply. In this work, an analytical approach combining electrical and mechanical models is proposed and validated from an experimental set-up based on a simple driving circuit as an emulator for the charge pump. This approach characterizing the whole electromechanical system from power source to driving performances will be valuable for system design of electrostatic micro motors. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license