Nonlinear Parameter Identification of a Resonant Electrostatic MEMS Actuator

Majed S Al-Ghamdi; Ayman M Alneamy; Sangtak Park; Beichen Li; Mahmoud E Khater; Eihab M Abdel-Rahman; Glenn R Heppler; Mustafa Yavuz

doi:10.3390/s17051121

Nonlinear Parameter Identification of a Resonant Electrostatic MEMS Actuator

Sensors (Basel). 2017 May 13;17(5):1121. doi: 10.3390/s17051121.

Authors

Majed S Al-Ghamdi¹, Ayman M Alneamy², Sangtak Park³, Beichen Li⁴, Mahmoud E Khater⁵, Eihab M Abdel-Rahman⁶, Glenn R Heppler⁷, Mustafa Yavuz⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. malghamd@uwaterloo.ca.
² Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. aalneamy@uwaterloo.ca.
³ Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. sangtak@uwaterloo.ca.
⁴ Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. myavuz@uwaterloo.ca.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia. mkhater@kfupm.edu.sa.
⁶ Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. eihab@uwaterloo.ca.
⁷ Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. heppler@uwaterloo.ca.
⁸ Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. b84li@uwaterloo.ca.

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the primary superharmonic of order two and subharmonic of order one-half resonances of an electrostatic MEMS actuator under direct excitation. We identify the parameters of a one degree of freedom (1-DOF) generalized Duffing oscillator model representing it. The experiments were conducted in soft vacuum to reduce squeeze-film damping, and the actuator response was measured optically using a laser vibrometer. The predictions of the identified model were found to be in close agreement with the experimental results. We also identified the noise spectral density of process (actuation voltage) and measurement noise.

Keywords: electrostatic MEMS; measurement noise; parameter identification; primary resonance; process noise; secondary resonances.