Cylindrical and conical electrostatic wobble micromotors

Abstract

This paper describes the analysis, design, construction and testing of two electrostatic wobble micromotors; a conventional cylindrical design and a new conical design. Both designs have stators with eight segments. The cylindrical micromotor rotor is about 4mm in diameter and 20mm long while the conical rotor has a maximum diameter of about 10mm and is 12mm long. The advantage of the new conical design is that it eliminates the need for a pivot and hence substantially reduces the size of the motor. A detailed theoretical analysis of the designs is shown and compared with experimental results. The micromotors are operated under open-loop control and the rotation of the rotor was tested at an applied voltage of up to 500V.