Prediction and Validation of Chaotic Behavior in an Electrostatically Actuated Microelectromechanical Oscillator

We investigate chaotic behavior for a microelectromechanical (MEM) oscillator, which is modeled by a version of the Mathieu equation that contains both linear and nonlinear time varying stiffness coefficients. By using Melnikov's method we have developed a criterion for the existence of chaos in such oscillators, which depends solely on system parameters. Chaotic behavior was observed experimentally and numerically for a MEM oscillator developed using the criterion from our analysis.