Servo-Assisted Position-Feedback MEMS Force Sensor with Tunable Sensitivity and Sub-Nanonewton Range †
1
Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
2
STMicroelectronics, Italy
3
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Presented at the Eurosensors 2017 Conference, Paris, France, 3–6 September 2017.
Proceedings 2017, 1(4), 383; https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings1040383
Published: 28 August 2017
(This article belongs to the Proceedings of Proceedings of Eurosensors 2017, Paris, France, 3–6 September 2017)
A Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) that allows to measure an external force applied to a probe tip exploiting an electrical servo-assisted mechanism based on position feedback is presented. The sensor architecture keeps the position of the probe tip fixed by driving a pair of variable-area electrostatic actuators in a feedback loop controlled by a variable-gap capacitive sensor. By adjusting specific loop parameters, the force sensitivity can be finely tuned electrically. Sub-nanonewton measurement range is achieved with high flexibility in setting the tip working point, making the system promising for measuring forces generated by living biological cells.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Nastro, A.; Ferrari, M.; Russo, A.-L.; Ardito, R.; Ferrari, V. Servo-Assisted Position-Feedback MEMS Force Sensor with Tunable Sensitivity and Sub-Nanonewton Range. Proceedings 2017, 1, 383. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings1040383
AMA Style
Nastro A, Ferrari M, Russo A-L, Ardito R, Ferrari V. Servo-Assisted Position-Feedback MEMS Force Sensor with Tunable Sensitivity and Sub-Nanonewton Range. Proceedings. 2017; 1(4):383. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings1040383
Chicago/Turabian StyleNastro, Alessandro, Marco Ferrari, Alfio-Lip Russo, Raffaele Ardito, and Vittorio Ferrari. 2017. "Servo-Assisted Position-Feedback MEMS Force Sensor with Tunable Sensitivity and Sub-Nanonewton Range" Proceedings 1, no. 4: 383. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings1040383
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