SELF-EXCITED MICROELECTROMECHANICAL DEVICE

摘要

A self-excited microelectromechanical device (22) is described. The device includes a resonating structure (28), such as a cantilever, which responds to a physical phenomenon by generating an induced variable frequency voltage signal corresponding to the physical phenomenon. Self-excitation circuitry (24) connected to the cantilever processes the induced variable frequency voltage signal and produces a variable frequency voltage signal in a resonant pass band of interest that is applied to the cantilever to augment the effect of the physical phenomenon on the cantilever. An exemplary use of the device is as a power line sensor (86). In this context, the cantilever responds to the electric field associated with a power signal on a power line (82). The cantilever transforms the voltage signal of the electric field into a corresponding frequency signal. The noise-immune frequency signal can be readily processed to reconstruct the power signals carried by the power line.