In this paper, a piezoelectrically driven quasi-static MEMS mirror is developed for a scanning LiDAR system. Finite element method (FEM) simulations are used to optimize the design of the MEMS scanner. With special emphasis on the shape and thickness of the actuators, they are optimized to reach a maximum static total optical scan angle (TOSA) of 30°. Their influence on the resonance frequency at dynamic modes and the material stress are investigated. In this study, two designs are compared with respect to their FEM simulation results. Currently, the devices are manufactured in the cleanroom. The manufactured samples will be characterized and the measurement results will be published in future works.

In this work, a biaxial, piezoelectrically driven resonant MEMS mirror with large design flexibility is presented. After FEM-based design optimization to reduce material stress and thereby maximize the achievable total optical scanning angles, fabricated MEMS mirrors were electrically, mechanically, and optically characterized. While the achievable optical scanning angles were determined using a home-built optical setup, a laser Doppler vibrometer was used to characterize the resonance frequencies of the rotational modes and their respective quality factors. The encapsulation of the mirror by a glass window ensures its operation in vacuum, which increases the Q-factor up to 15,000.

This paper presents the optical system design for the MEMS mirror-based SPAD LiDAR system. The transmitter of the proposed LiDAR system consists of related optics for incident beam expansion and a piezoelectric MEMS mirror for a wide-scanning field of view. For the receiver unit, an SPAD array is utilized to collect the laser beam reflected from the target objects at a smart factory. The optical system of the proposed LiDAR system is presented, designed, and analyzed in various ways.

Biaxial quasistatic MEMS micro mirrors can be used in vector scanning applications to arbitrarily direct a laser beam towards a target in a step-and-settle operating mode, or to follow a setpoint signal in a tracking mode. However, MEMS structures are typically underdamped mass-spring systems - any transient excitation results in a slowly decaying oscillation. Actuators based on sputtered AlScN allow for computationally efficient open-loop control due to the inherently linear piezoelectric properties of the material over a wide operating range. We demonstrate this using a real-time tunable digital filter design based on the inversion of a second order transfer function. This approach effectively reduces the decay time to the millisecond range.