A novel hybrid contactless suspension with adjustable spring constant

A novel hybrid Contactless Suspension (CS), in which a vertical component of stiffness is decreased in a controlled manner, is presented. The decreasing is performed by means of the electrostatic field generated by a set of electrodes and acting on an electromagnetically levitating, conductive disk-shaped Proof Mass (PM). The preliminary, experimental results accompanied by a quasi-exact nonlinear modelling prove the concept and showed the successful levitation of the PM within electrostatic field together with the controlled decrease of the stiffness from 0.043 to 0.03 N/m. The suspension establishes a promising direction for the further improvement in the performance of micro-sensors.