- Title
- Instrumentation techniques for the control of MEMS nanopositioners
- Creator
- Moore, Steven
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2016
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis outlines the design and characterization of a number of sensing systems implemented in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). A review has been made into the fabrication processes, actuation technologies and sensing technologies used to implement MEMS devices. Further review focuses on two areas, MEMS resonators and self-sensing actuators. Five new designs have been produced. First, a MEMS resonator is presented in this report that incorporates electrothermal sensing to capture the motion of the resonator. This is a demonstration of the electrothermal sensing technology in a resonator context. It provides a simple alternative for high resolution motion capture in systems where electrostatic transduction may be too weak. The second design constructs a system to characterized the stiffness of microcantilevers using two nanopositioners. The first is MEMS nanopositioner that is configured as a force sensor using feedback control. The second is a piezoelectric tube nanopositioner with a displacement sensor. The tube nanopositioner ramps the microcantilever into the force sensor and the displacement and force signals are recorded. Post processing of the signals is used to determine the stiffness. The third design is for a self-sensing electrostatic drive using current sensing. A design is presented that can be used in systems where many electrostatic actuators share a common ground, as is the case with a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) two axis nanopositioner. Vibration control is implement to demonstrate the suitability of using the self-sensing actuator in feedback control. The fourth design is a self-sensing electrostatic actuator that uses capacitance sensing. Capacitance sensing has the advantage of being able to measure constant displacements, but is more complex to implement than current sensing. The electrostatic actuator was incorporated into an LC oscillator. This creates a mapping from displacement, to capacitance, to frequency. The sensor is characterized and feedback control is demonstrated on the system. The fifth design examines an alternative technique to implement a self-sensing electrostatic drive. Here switching electronics are used to alternate between actuating and sensing functions. It is applied to a two axes nanopositioner and a fully digital interface is developed. Discrete time control via an FPGA is implemented and its performance demonstrated.
- Subject
- MEMS nanopositioners; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS); nanopositioning; force measurement
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1322417
- Identifier
- uon:24581
- Rights
- Copyright 2016 Steven Moore
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 8 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 86 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |