The Design And Implementation Of Electrohydrodynamic Jet Printer Software System

Compared with traditional inkjet printing process, electrohydrodynamic printing supports high-resolution, high-viscosity, multi-mode printing, so the development of electrohydrodynamic printing equipment has great significance for the flexible/printed electronics manufacturing. This thesis aims to design an easy-extension, easy-maintenance and transplantable software system, and carries out systematic research on the key technology of electrospinning automatic manufacturing——adaptive voltage adjustment and trajectory planning.1) A software system based on hierarchical architecture is designed for manufacturing needs. It is divided into hardware layer, function module layer, sub-function panel layer, main interface layer. The hardware layer enables automatic control; the function module layer is to enhance software reusability; the sub-function panel layer achieves the designed functionalities; the main interface layer achieves flexible layout of sub-function panel layer.2) To achieve the adjustment of voltage for different functional solutions and single/multi-nozzles, an adaptive voltage adjustment algorithm based on machine vision is proposed. The high-speed camera is adopted to capture the Taylor cone, and the image processing algorithm is adopted to calculate the geometry characteristics(shape, size and area) of Taylor cone. Then the output voltage is adjusted by comparing the geometry characteristics with the standard features. Adaptive voltage adjustment can be achieved through real-time online feedback control of Taylor cone, which improves material compatibility and enables equipment adaptability.3) A trajectory planning algorithm based on DXF vector graphics file is proposed to transfer traditional electrospinning to automatic electrohydrodynamic direct-writing. This algorithm extracts the vector metadata from DXF and transforms the metadata to PMAC's motion programs based on electrospinning procedure, and it achieves automatically manufacturing path generation. And several experiments have adopted to validate the trajectory planning algorithm of electrohydrodynamic direct-writing.In this paper, the designed software system of electrohydrodynamic jet printer is proved to have good extensibility and reusability, and is ease for maintenance. Experimental results show that the software can automatically complete the electrohydrodynamic direct-writing, including adaptive voltage adjustment and automatical trajectory plan. The above work has been integrated into the equipment Me-Jet XR1 which was award the Swiss Geneva International Invention Award. It has laid the foundation for the future development of industrial-level electrohydrodynamic printing equipment.