Combining COMSOL Modeling with Different Piezoelectric Materials to Design MEMS Cantilevers for Marine Sensing Robotics

Abstract

This work presents a novel, highly sensitive, and directional piezoelectric cantilever-based micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) device conceived using a biomimetic approach of a fish’s lateral line system for marine sensing robotics. The device will consist of twelve cantilevers with different lengths in a cross-shaped configuration made with a piezoelectric thin film (PZT, ZnO, BaTiO3) embedded between the top and bottom metals, Platinum (Pt) and Aluminum (Al), used as electrodes. This unique design of cantilevers in circular shapes has the advantage of directional response. A comparative study of these piezoelectric materials was performed analytically through the finite element method to design, model, and simulate our device in COMSOL software. Cantilever microstructures were simulated with lengths ranging from 100 to 1000 mm. The results show that PZT has the best performance with these materials. The maximum potential voltage was shown as 1.9 mV using the PZT material cantilever with 29 µm displacement.

Keywords

• MEMS
• piezoelectric
• vector hydrophone
• sensitivity
• PZT
• COMSOL Multiphysics