Numerical modeling of sensing and actuating electromechanical transducers

A numerical scheme for the modeling of coupled field problems arising in sensor and actuator technology is reported. This scheme has been implemented in software and allows the precise numerical computation of coupled field problems (linear and nonlinear) as typically arising in the design of electrostatic, magnetomechanical and piezoelectric transducers (sensors and/or actuators). This software is based on finite elements (FEM), boundary elements (BEM) and, FEM-BEM procedures. In addition, we implemented modules which allow the integrated simulation of (electronic) controllers within a FEM or BEM run or, by running the controller software on a separate processor, via process interconnection. Having the simulation of a controller within the loop is especially helpful for the modeling of the complete process loop, meaning that we can simultaneously analyze the sensor, the actuator and the controller behavior.