A novel expression obtained by using artificial bee colony algorithm to calculate pull-in voltage of fixed-fixed micro-actuators

Abstract

In this paper, a novel, computationally efficient and simple closed-form expression has been derived to accurately calculate the pull-in voltage value of fixed-fixed micro-actuator. At first, microelectromechanical systems actuators with various physical parameters have been simulated by a software that employs the finite element method, the pull-in voltage expression has been derived by using the artificial bee colony optimization algorithm together with the simulation data. Since the formula is derived from the simulation data, it implicitly contains the fringing field, mid-plane stretching and size effects. In order to verify the accuracy and robustness, the predictions of closed-form formula proposed in this work have been compared with those of the theoretical ones through the simulation and experimental studies previously presented in the literature. The key advantage of the presented method is delivering a satisfying estimation of the pull-in voltage with a simple and easy way.