The wobble motor: design, fabrication and testing of an eccentric-motion electrostatic microactuator

The basic characteristics and advantages of microelectromechanical systems, machines constructed of small moving subelements which have characteristic dimensions in the range of about 0.5 to 500 μm, are reviewed; design problems are considered; and particular attention is given to the wobble motor (WM) developed by S.C. Jacobsen et al. (1989) using electrodischarge machining (EDM). Fifteen EDM WMs have been constructed and utilized for experimental purposes. WM explorations have demonstrated that micro systems can be quite easily constructed by means other than etching silicon. Experiments aimed at generating simple preliminary data have been conducted, and results compare reasonably to analytical studies. Results reported include stall torque measurements, speed measurements, torque-speed measurements, and wear measurements