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MEMS-based LiDAR with a low cost and small volume is a promising solution for 3D measurement. In this paper, a reconfigurable angular resolution design method is proposed in a separate-axis Lissajous scanning MEMS LiDAR system. This design method reveals the influence factors on the angular resolution, including the characteristics of the MEMS mirrors, the laser duty cycle and pulse width, the processing time of the echo signal, the control precision of the MEMS mirror, and the laser divergence angle. A simulation was carried out to show which conditions are required to obtain different angular resolutions. The experimental results of the 0.2° × 0.62° and 0.2° × 0.15° (horizontal × vertical) angular resolutions demonstrate the feasibility of the design method to realize a reconfigurable angular resolution in a separate-axis Lissajous scanning MEMS LiDAR system by employing MEMS mirrors with different characteristics. This study provides a reasonable potential to obtain a high and flexible angular resolution for MEMS LiDAR.

Most of the miniaturized electromagnetic vibrational energy harvesters (EVEHs) are based on oscillating proof mass suspended by several springs or a cantilever structure. Such structural feature limits the miniaturization of the device’s footprint. This paper presents an EVEH device based on a torsional vibrating magnet over a stack of flexible planar coils. The torsional movement of the magnet is enabled by microfabricated silicon torsional springs, which effectively reduce the footprint of the device. With a size of 1 cm × 1 cm × 1.08 cm, the proposed EVEH is capable of generating an open-circuit peak-to-peak voltage of 169 mV and a power of 6.9 μW, under a sinusoidal excitation of ±0.5 g (g = 9.8 m/s2) and frequency of 96 Hz. At elevated acceleration levels, the maximum peak-to-peak output voltage is 222 mV under the acceleration of 7 g (±3.5 g).

MEMS-based LiDAR (micro-electro–mechanical system based light detection and ranging), with a low cost and small volume, becomes a promising solution for the two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) optical imaging. A semi-coaxial MEMS LiDAR design, based on a synchronous MEMS mirror pair, was proposed in our early study. In this paper, we specifically reveal the synchronization method of the comb-actuated MEMS mirror pair, including the frequency, amplitude, and phase synchronization. The frequency sweeping and phase adjustment are simultaneously implemented to accelerate the MEMS mirror synchronization process. The experiment is set up and the entire synchronization process is completed within 5 s. Eventually, a one-beam MEMS LiDAR system with the synchronous MEMS mirror pair is set up and a LiDAR with a field of view (FOV) of 60°, angular resolution of 0.2°, and frame rate of 360 Hz is obtained. The experimental results verify the feasibility of the MEMS mirror synchronization method and show a promising potential application prospect for the MEMS LiDAR system.

This paper presents a compact electromagnetic vibrational energy harvester (EVEH) with tunable resonance frequency. The resonance frequency of the EVEH is tuned by adjusting the axial stress in the flexible polymeric springs, which is realized by physically pulling and pushing the springs. The stress tuning functionality is realized with a compact structure with small volume. The total frequency tuning range of the proposed EVEH is 56 Hz (74–130 Hz), which is 64% of the natural resonance frequency of the EVEH (88 Hz). It is found that the tensile stress increases the resonance frequency of the EVEH, while the compressive stress firstly reduces the resonance frequency and then increases the resonance frequency due to buckling.

A miniaturized reliability test system for microdevices with controlled environmental parameters is presented. The system is capable of measuring key electrical parameters of the microdevices while controlling the environmental conditions around the microdevices. The test system is compact and thus can be integrated with standard test equipment for microdevices. By using a feed-forward decoupling algorithm, the presented test system is capable of generating a temperature range of 0–120 °C and a humidity range of 20–90% RH (0–55 °C), within a small footprint and weight. The accuracy for temperature and humidity control is ±0.1 °C and ±1% RH (30 °C), respectively. The functionality of the proposed test system is verified by integrating it with a piezo shaker to test the environmental reliability of an electromagnetic vibration energy harvester. The proposed system can be used as a proof-of-technology platform for characterizing the performance of microdevices with controlled environmental parameters.

A novel resonant pressure sensor with an improved micromechanical double-ended tuning fork resonator packaged in dry air at atmospheric pressure is presented. The resonator is electrostatically driven and capacitively detected, and the sensor is designed to realize a low cost resonant pressure sensor with medium accuracy. Various damping mechanisms in a resonator that is vibrating at atmospheric pressure are analyzed in detail, and a formula is developed to predict the overall quality factor. A trade-off has been reached between the quality factor, stress sensitivity and drive capability of the resonator. Furthermore, differential sense elements and the method of electromechanical amplitude modulation are used for capacitive detection to obtain a large signal-to-noise ratio. The prototype sensor chip is successfully fabricated using a micromachining process based on a commercially available silicon-on-insulator wafer and is hermetically encapsulated in a custom 16-pin Kovar package. Preliminary measurements show that the fundamental frequency of the resonant pressure sensor is approximately 34.55 kHz with a pressure sensitivity of 20.77 Hz/kPa. Over the full scale pressure range of 100–400 kPa and the whole temperature range of −20–60 °C, high quality factors from 1,146 to 1,772 are obtained. The characterization of the prototype sensor reveals the feasibility of a resonant pressure sensor packaged at atmospheric pressure.

This paper presents a micromachined resonant pressure sensor. The sensor is designed to optimize the sensitivity and reduce the cross-talk between the driving electrodes and sensing electrodes. The relationship between the sensitivity of the sensor and the main design parameters is analyzed both theoretically and numerically. The sensing and driving electrodes are optimized to get both high sensing capacitance and low cross-talk. This sensor is fabricated using a micromachining process based on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer. An open-loop measurement system and a closed-loop self-oscillation system is employed to measure the characteristics of the sensor. The experiment result shows that the sensor has a pressure sensitivity of about 29 Hz/kPa, a nonlinearity of 0.02%FS, a hysteresis error of 0.05%FS, and a repeatability error of 0.01%FS. The temperature coefficient is less than 2 Hz/°C in the range of −40 to 80 °C and the short-term stability of the sensor is better than 0.005%FS.