MEMS Comb-Drive Actuator — Electrostatic Resonance Simulator

Nanoactuators built as MEMS structures move a suspended shuttle mass by charging an interdigitated comb of conductive fingers. Because the finger gap stays fixed as the shuttle slides, the electrostatic force is independent of position — unlike a parallel-plate actuator's unstable pull-in force — which is what makes comb drives the workhorse of resonant MEMS sensors and actuators. This simulator renders a real 3D comb structure on folded-flexure springs and integrates the true spring-mass-damper equation of motion under a DC-biased AC drive voltage, so sweeping the drive frequency through the mechanical resonance produces the same peaked amplitude response — scaled by the quality factor Q — that a real silicon comb-drive resonator shows on a network analyzer.