Input Shaping for Control of a High-Resolution Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printing Process

Electrohydrodynamic jet (e-jet) printing is a high-resolution, additive manufacturing process capable of printing micro/nanometer scale patterns for applications in electrical and optical sensors. Despite stringent design requirements to achieve functional printed sensors, most e-jet printers operate in an open-loop paradigm, shaping the input signal as a standard square voltage with constant low baseline and high peak voltages, and a set pulse duration to induce droplet ejections. These constant input values limit the volume and droplet spacing to set magnitudes, while unmodelled dynamics within the process may result in inaccurately printed patterns. In order to achieve more complex deposition patterns while mitigating the effects of unmodeled jetting dynamics, this paper presents an input shaping framework that allows for the design of variable jetting frequencies and volumes and compensates for unmodeled dynamics through data-driven updates observed across repetitive droplet ejections. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.