Reid J.R. – TechConnect Briefs

Building Micro-Robots: A path to sub-mm3 autonomous systems

Reid J.R., Vasilyev V., Webster R.T., US Air Force Research Laboratory, US

A process for fabricating sub-cubic millimeter, fully autonomous micro-robots is presented. Details of the process flow and intial prototype structures are demonstrated. In addition, the design of an electrostatic actuator array for moving the robot [...]

Simulation of Cantilever Beam Micro-switch Pull-in and Collapse Voltages

Reid J.R., Starman L.A., Air Force Research Laboratory, US

Simulations of cantilever beam micro-switches such as those shown in Figure 1 exhibit two important operational voltages: the pull-in voltage when contact is initiated at the landing electrode, and the collapse voltage when the cantilever [...]

Simulation and Measurement of Dielectric Charging in Electrostatically Actuated Capacitive Microwave Switches

Reid J.R., US Air Force Research Laboratory, AFRL/SNHA, US

Simulations of the effects of dielectric charging on the operation of electrostatically actuated capacitive microwave switches have been performed. The simulations are unique in that they incorporate fixed charges into the calculation of the beam [...]

Joule Heating Simulation of Poly-Silicon Thermal Micro-Actuators

Silversmith D.J., Reid J.R., Air Force Research Laboratory, US

Previous studies of surface micro-machined polycrystalline silicon MEMS thermal micro-actuators have shown that these simple devices can provide deflections on the order of 10 micrometers at CMOS compatible drive voltages. These thermo-mechanical devices operate by [...]