Hybrid Pseudo-Resonant Switched-Capacitor Drive Circuits for Electrostatic Micro-mechanical Actuators

用于静电微机械致动器的混合伪谐振开关电容器驱动电路

基本信息

批准号：
2216552
负责人：
Jason Stauth
金额：
$ 39.36万
依托单位：
Dartmouth College
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2022-08-15 至 2025-07-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2216552&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Hybrid Pseudo Resonant Switched Capacitor

项目摘要

Recent decades have seen the growth and proliferation of a variety of low-power, small-size electronic devices for portable consumer, industrial, and medical applications. In many cases these platforms desire electromechanical interfaces for sensors and actuators, mechanized control, robotics, and human-machine interfaces. New electrostatic (electric-field-driven) micro-electromechanical actuators including piezoelectric devices, silicon MEMs, and dielectric elastomers show significant potential to overcome the severe size and weight limitations of conventional magnetic-based electric motors. However, these technologies require new design paradigms for the associated electronic interfaces, which must provide high driving voltages (typically 100’s of volts to low kV) while boosting from low-voltage (single-digit volt range) supplies, and must remain efficient at small size (~1cm3) and weight (~1g). A unique consideration is that electrostatic devices present as dominantly capacitive in most scenarios. Therefore key challenges include providing high-voltage bidirectional DC-DC conversion at extremely small size, while efficiently delivering (and recovering) reactive power at drive frequencies in a Hz-kHz range. Addressing these challenges could have impacts in diverse industry sectors from medical and biomedical devices, microfluidics, imaging, optics and communications, ultrasound, and haptic tactile interfaces.This project will involve the exploration, design, and integration of efficient, high-voltage, mm-scale drive electronics for electrostatic micro-mechanical actuators. A new hybrid pseudo-resonant architecture will be developed that merges a reconfigurable series-parallel switched capacitor (SC) converter with a low-voltage bidirectional inductor-based DC-DC converter. The hybrid approach merges the advantages of pure SC and inductor-based topologies while providing capabilities to recover (recycle) energy stored in the actuator bulk dielectric. The intellectual merit of the proposal includes circuit techniques, control, and communication concepts that can provide significant advantages – extending the voltage conversion range, providing stable regulation, eliminating design tradeoffs, and reducing overall power loss by over an order of magnitude compared to conventional architectures. The project will include the study of architecture details including optimal segmentation of current, voltage, and power ratings of the respective portions of the hybrid converter to maximize performance at total size 100mm3 and weight 100mg. A new, highly-scalable, level-shifting strategy will be developed to enable chip-chip series stacking, allowing drive voltages well in excess of the semiconductor buried-oxide (BOX) breakdown limit. An integrated circuit (IC) prototype will be designed a 300V SOI CMOS process to demonstrate high-voltage operation, actuator energy recovery, and chip-chip stacking to low-kV drive voltages from 1.7-4.2 V supplies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

近几十年来，用于便携式消费、工业和医疗应用的各种低功耗、小尺寸电子设备不断增长和普及，在许多情况下，这些平台需要用于传感器和执行器、机械化控制、机器人和医疗设备的机电接口。新型静电（电场驱动）微机电执行器，包括压电器件、硅 MEM 和介电弹性体，显示出克服严格的尺寸和重量限制的巨大潜力。然而，这些技术需要相关电子接口的新设计范例，这些电子接口必须提供高驱动电压（通常为 100 伏至低 kV），同时由低压（个位数伏特范围）电源升压。，并且必须在小尺寸（~1cm3）和重量（~1g）下保持高效，一个独特的考虑因素是静电设备在大多数情况下主要是电容性的，因此关键挑战包括提供高电压。解决这些挑战可能会对医疗和生物医学设备、微流体、成像、光学等不同行业产生影响。该项目将涉及用于静电微机械致动器的高效、高压、毫米级驱动电子器件的探索、设计和集成。将开发伪谐振架构，将可重构串并联开关电容器 (SC) 转换器与基于低压双向电感器的 DC-DC 转换器相结合。这种混合方法融合了纯 SC 和基于电感器的拓扑的优点，同时提供。该提案的智力优点包括电路技术、控制和通信概念，可以提供显着的优势——扩大电压转换范围，提供稳定的电压。与传统架构相比，该项目将包括对架构细节的研究，包括混合转换器各个部分的电流、电压和额定功率的最佳分段。为了最大限度地提高总尺寸 100mm3 和重量 100mg 的性能，将开发一种新的、高度可扩展的电平转换策略，以实现芯片-芯片串联堆叠，从而使驱动电压远远超过半导体埋氧化物。 (BOX) 击穿极限。集成电路 (IC) 原型将采用 300V SOI CMOS 工艺进行设计，以演示高压操作、执行器能量回收以及从 1.7-4.2 V 电源到低 kV 驱动电压的芯片芯片堆叠。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。