Measurement of electromagnetic force using a feedback-controlled MEMS force sensor

Quantifying the forces generated by miniature electromagnetic actuators is challenging because of the small magnitude of the generated forces. In this paper, we report measurement of the electromagnetic forces generated by planar electromagnetic coil employed in micro-robotics. The force is measured using a microelectromechanical system-based force sensor which operates in a feedback loop providing a resolution of 4 nN. The experimentally obtained results matche with the numerically obtained value with an error of less than 10%.