A design of mini actuator for compact camera without using permanent magnet

Abstract

This paper presents a design of mini actuator without using permanent magnet for auto-focus (AF) compact camera module (CCM) built on mobile phone, tablet PC and notebook. The current through the coils of electromagnets will yield magnetic force to move the moving part up and down. Comparing with conventional spring-type voice coil motor (VCM) and non-spring type VCM, the proposed actuator eliminates the concerns of rare earth supply and magnetic flux leakage which can fail the function of magnetic flux sensitive device such as e-compass. The proposed actuator also simplifies the power converter design from bipolar scheme as required by conventional non-spring type VCM to unipolar. A comprehensive electromagnetic analysis is performed by using finite element method to characterize the performance of the proposed actuator. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the magnetic flux leakage in the proposed actuator is much smaller than those by conventional design.