Patent ID: 8269396

Claim:
A method for operating an electro-mechanical actuator having a plurality of comb drives, comprising: applying a sequence of control voltages to the comb drives of the plurality to cause the actuator to pass through a corresponding sequence of different states to a configuration in which the mobile capacitor plates of the comb drives are in equilibrium rest positions; and wherein the configuration is such that the teeth of one of the mobile capacitor plates are separated from the teeth of another capacitor plate of a same one of the comb drives by a gap along a movement direction of the one of the mobile capacitor plates; and wherein the one of the comb drives is more engaged in the configuration than when the one of the mobile capacitor plates is at a mechanical stability threshold, the one of the mobile capacitor plates being at the mechanical stability threshold when positioned at the one of the intercepts of the tangent lines to a positive slope part of a capacitance slope function of the one of the comb drives for which the one of the comb drives is most engaged.