A 100 V-IC for the remote powering and control of a microrobot using an electrostatic ciliary motion system

For the first time a high-voltage IC, specially dedicated to the remote powering and the control by inductive coupling of electrostatic actuators, has been designed and successfully tested. Four actuators can be controlled simultaneously with a maximum actuation voltage of 100 V. As a preliminary test, a capacitive load of 220 pF has been driven at a frequency of 100 Hz with an output voltage of 30 V and a distance of 2.5 cm between emitter and receiver antennas. To avoid the electrostatic stiction of mobile parts, the IC alternates the polarity of the actuation voltage. The possibility to control 4 highly capacitive actuators independently makes this circuit suitable for the remote control of a two degrees of freedom electrostatic Ciliary Motion System (CMS). The chip has been fabricated using European multi-chip service (EUROPRACTICE) in the Alcatel-Mietec I2T100 technology. Its dimensions are 5*3 mm/sup 2/.