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A Waveform Design Method for a Piezo Inkjet Printhead Based on Robust

Feedforward Control

Article in Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems · December 2012

DOI: 10.1109/JMEMS.2012.2205899

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DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
A Waveform Design Method for a Piezo Inkjet
Printhead based on Robust Feedforward Control
Amol A. Khalate, Xavier Bombois, Gérard Scorletti, Robert Babuška, Sjirk Koekebakker, and Wim de Zeeuw
Abstract—The printing quality delivered by a Drop-on-
Demand (DoD) piezo inkjet printhead is limited mainly due
to the residual oscillations in the ink channel. The maximal
jetting frequency of a DoD inkjet printhead can be increased
by quickly damping the residual oscillations and so bringing an
ink-channel to rest after jetting an ink drop. In this paper, we
propose a robust optimization-based method to design the input
actuation waveform for the piezo actuator in order to improve the
damping of the residual oscillations in the presence of parametric
uncertainties in the ink-channel model. The proposed method
obtains a robust actuation pulse by minimizing the tracking error
under the parametric uncertainty. Experimental results with a
small droplet DoD inkjet printhead are presented to show the
efficacy of the proposed method and the significant improvement
in the ink drop consistency.
I. I NTRODUCTION
The ability of inkjet technology to deposit materials with
diverse chemical and physical properties has made it an
important technology for both industry and home use. Apart
from conventional document printing, the inkjet technology
has been successfully applied in the areas of electronics,
mechanical engineering and life sciences [1]. This is mainly
thanks to the low operational costs of the technology. Recently,
inkjet printheads are getting closely associated with the micro-
electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Inkjet print-
heads are now being used to fabricate MEMS devices [2],
[3]. Inkjet printheads are also miniaturized to MEMS level
[4]. A typical drop-on-demand (DoD) piezo inkjet printhead
consists of several ink channels in parallel. Each channel is
provided with a piezo-actuator, which on application of a
voltage pulse generates pressure oscillations inside the ink
channel. These pressure oscillations push the ink drop out
of the nozzle. A detailed description of the droplet jetting
process can be found in [5]. The print quality delivered by
an inkjet printhead depends on the properties of the jetted
drop, i.e., the drop velocity, the jetting direction and the drop
volume. To meet the challenging performance requirements
This work has been carried out as part of the Octopus project with Océ
Technologies B.V. under the responsibility of the Embedded Systems Institute.
This project is partially supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic
Affairs under the Bsik program P90600.
Amol A. Khalate, Xavier Bombois, Robert Babuška are
Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of
Technology, Mekelweg 2, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands. e-mail:
({a.a.khalate,x.j.a.bombois,r.babuska}@tudelft.nl).
Gérard Scorletti is with Laboratoire Ampère, Ecole Centrale de Lyon,
Ecully, France.
Sjirk Koekebakker and Wim de Zeeuw are with Océ Technologies B.V.,
5900 MA Venlo, The Netherlands.
1
posed by new applications, these drop properties have to be
tightly controlled.
The performance of the inkjet printhead is mainly limited
due to the residual pressure oscillations. The actuation pulses
are designed to provide an ink drop of a specified volume and
velocity under the assumption that the ink channel is in steady
state. Once the ink drop is jetted, the pressure oscillations
inside the ink channel take several micro-seconds to decay.
If the next ink drop is jetted before the residual pressure
oscillations have settled, the resulting drop properties will be
different from the ones of the previous drop. This can degrade
the printhead performance, since a printhead has to jet drops
with a constant velocity at different frequencies. Given this
fact, an important characteristic is the so-called DoD curve
which represents the ink drop velocity as a function of the
jetting frequency (which is also called the DoD frequency).
Ideally, the DoD curve must be flat. However, for the above
reasons, this DoD curve is far from flat in practice. Our goal
in this paper is to flatten the DoD curve by redesigning the
piezo actuation pulse.
In the literature, we can find methods to redesign the
piezo actuation pulse based on exhaustive experimental studies
[6]–[10] and experimental analysis [11], [12]. In [13], we
introduced a model-based approach to design the actuation
pulse for the DoD inkjet printhead. The model we have used is
a discrete-time transfer function H(q) relating the piezo input
voltage (i.e., the input u) to the velocity of the meniscus1 (i.e.,
the output y). We consider this particular model since it is well
known that the velocity of the meniscus is a good measure
of the pressure in the ink channel [6], [14]. Consequently,
reducing the residual oscillations of the meniscus velocity is
equivalent to reducing the residual pressure oscillations in the
ink channel [5].
In order to design the piezo actuation pulse with this transfer
function H(q), we have parameterized the set of actuation
pulses u(k, θ) that the driving electronics can generate with
the pulse parameter vector θ (k is the discrete-time index).
Then a template yref (k) is designed for the desired meniscus
velocity, i.e., a meniscus velocity profile with fast decaying
residual oscillations. Based on this template yref (k) and the
transfer function H(q) an optimal actuation pulse u(k, θopt ) is
determined as the one minimizing the tracking error e(k) =
yref (k) − y(k). Experimental results have shown [13] that the
optimal actuation pulse u(k, θopt ) designed in this manner
improves the performance of the inkjet printhead compared to
the standard actuation pulse (the pulse that is generally used
1 The meniscus is an interface between the ink and air.
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
for the printhead). However, the DoD-curve with the optimal
pulse u(k, θopt ) is not completely flat.
The main reason for this is that the model H(q) used for
the design of the optimal pulse only represents the dynamics
of the system when a single drop is jetted. The model H(q)
is therefore not representative of the dynamics of the system
when jetting a series of drops at a certain DoD frequency.
Data-based identification of the system dynamics furthermore
suggests that the dynamics from the piezo input to the menis-
cus velocity depend on the DoD frequency.
In this paper, in order to take into account this model
variation, we encompass the set of dynamical models obtained
at various operating DoD frequencies in a compact uncertainty
set H(q, ∆) (∆ ∈ ∆) and we design a robust actuation pulse
which will ensure a minimum performance for all models in
the uncertainty set. The robust actuation pulse is obtained by
minimizing the worst-case norm of the tracking error e(k) with
the uncertain inkjet system H(q, ∆). As we will see at the end
of this paper experimental results show that this robust pulse
generates a DoD-curve which is much flatter than when using
the optimal pulse (and the standard pulse).
II. OVERVIEW OF THE O PTIMIZATION -BASED
F EEDFORWARD C ONTROL D ESIGN
We first present a brief summary of our model-based
approach [13] using only the nominal model H(q) in order to
motivate the need for the robust pulse design. Another reason
for this summary is that some elements will also be necessary
for our robust design. This is for example the case for the
parametrization of the actuation pulse.
A. System description
Flexible foil Piezo unit
Reservoir
Substrate
Droplet
Channel plate
Filter Channel Nozzle
Fig. 1. A cross-sectional view of an ink channel.
We use a small droplet DoD inkjet printhead built by Océ
Technologies to demonstrate the proposed actuation pulse
design method. The DoD inkjet printhead under investigation
is made up of two arrays of 128 ink channels each. A
cross-sectional view of an ink channel is shown in Figure 1.
The ink channel is carved in the channel plate. A filter is
placed before the ink channel to remove impurities from the
liquid ink. A metallic nozzle-plate with drilled holes, which
act as nozzles, is attached at the end of the channel plate.
One wall of the ink channel is formed by a flexible foil to
which a piezo unit is attached. The piezo unit acts as an
actuator and on the application of a voltage, it deforms the
wall of the ink channel. The deformation generates pressure
waves inside the ink channel and when specific conditions
are met, a droplet is jetted [5]. Note that the viscosity of the
2
used ink is 10 · 10−3 Pa·s and the surface tension of the ink
is 28·10−3 Nm−1 . The speed of sound in the ink is 1250ms−1 .
B. Parametrization of the actuation pulse
The driving electronics of the printhead limit the range of
the actuation pulses, that can be generated in practice, to
trapezoidal waveforms consisting of one or two trapezoidal
pulses. The standard pulse ustd (k) (i.e. the one that is currently
used in printheads) consists of only one positive trapezoidal
pulse (called the resonating pulse). This pulse is able to jet
a drop, but it generates residual oscillations as mentioned in
the introduction. In order to be able to damp these residual
oscillations, we choose a parametrization where the resonating
pulse is followed by a negative trapezoidal pulse (called the
quenching pulse). See Fig. 2.
The parameters that are optimized are the rise time (tr ),
the dwell time (tw ), the fall time (tf ) and the amplitude (V )
of both the resonating (R) and the quenching pulse (Q). The
time interval between the resonating pulse and the quenching
pulse is tdQ . Thus, an actuation pulse u(k, θ) is defined by the
parameter vector θ = [trR twR tfR VR tdQ trQ twQ tfQ VQ ]T .
Note that The amplitude of the pulse is expressed in Volts.
The time parameters in θ are number of samples. However, for
simplicity, we express these parameters in µ s by multiplying
the number of samples with the sampling time Ts .
u
twR
VR
trQ tfQ
trR tfR td Q time
VQ
twQ
Fig. 2. Proposed actuation pulse.
C. Modeling and the desired meniscus velocity
As mentioned in the introduction, the results in [13] are
based on a linear model H(q) relating the pulse u(k, θ) to the
meniscus velocity y(k). The model H(q) is derived directly
from the so-called narrow-gap model [15].
By construction, this model describes, almost perfectly, the
relation between u(k) and y(k) when one single ink drop is
jetted from an ink channel which was at rest.
In [13], the model was used for two purposes. The first
purpose is to determine the desired meniscus velocity template
yref (k) and the second one is to compute the optimal pulse
uopt (k) = u(k, θopt ).
To obtain yref (k), we determine the response of the model
H(q) when the standard pulse ustd (k) of the considered
printhead is used as an input. The standard pulse is known
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
6
Response to standard pulse ( y )
5
Reference meniscus velocity trajectory ( y
4
Meniscus velocity (m/s)
2
1 A
0
−1
−2
−3
0 10 20 30
Fig. 3. Reference meniscus velocity trajectory.
to jet a droplet with the desired properties when the ink
channel is at rest. The standard pulse for the inkjet print-
head considered in this paper is parameterized by the vector
θstd = [1.5 2.5 1.5 25 0 0 0 0 0]T (i.e. ustd (k) = u(k, θstd ))
and is represented in Fig. 6. The response y(k) of H(q) to
this pulse has two parts as shown in Fig. 3 (dashed line). Part
A of the response allows the drop to be jetted at the desired
drop velocity: the template yref (k) for the meniscus velocity
should therefore be the same as y(k) in Part A. Part B of the
response y(k) represents the residual oscillations. This is an
undesired behavior since the residual oscillations perturb the
subsequent drops. Therefore, in Part B, we force the desired
meniscus velocity yref (k) to zero.
If the actuation pulse is designed in such a way that the
meniscus velocity y(k) follows the reference trajectory yref (k),
then the channel will come to rest very quickly after jetting the
ink drop. This will create the conditions to jet the ink drops
at higher DoD frequencies.
D. Optimal Actuation Pulse Design
In [13], we define the optimal actuation pulse as the trape-
zoidal input u(k, θ) which minimizes the difference between
the reference trajectory yref (k) and the meniscus velocity
y(k) = H(q)u(k, θ). More precisely, the parameter vector θopt
describing the optimal pulse is the one solving the following
(nonlinear) optimization problem
θopt = arg min Jnom (θ),
θ i=0
with
N 
X 19.5 µs, and Dk is the number of samples between two
Jnom (θ) =
k=0
T
where N = Ts is the sampling time, T is chosen equal to
Ts ,
100 µs, q is the forward shift operator and θLB and θU B are
vectors containing the lower and the upper bounds on each
element of the parameter vector θ.
The optimal actuation pulse vector θopt obtained by solving
the above problem is
θopt = [2.0 2.5 1.3 22.5 7.6 1.3 0.4 4.4 − 13.2]T ,
3
and the optimal actuation pulse uopt (k) = u(k, θopt ) is shown
in Fig. 6. Simulation results show that the optimal pulse
ref
)
uopt (k) tracks the reference yref (k) and damps the residual
oscillations almost perfectly (see [13]).
E. Experimental results with the optimal pulse
B
To validate our approach, the performance of the optimal
pulse uopt (k) has been compared with the one of the standard
pulse ustd (k) on an experimental setup. The experimental test
consists of jetting 10 ink drops from the inkjet channel at
a fixed DoD frequency. This experiment was repeated for
different DoD frequencies ranging from 20kHz to 70kHz.
40 50
Time (µs)
60 70 80 90 100 For evaluating the performance we can plot the drop veloc-
ities of the 10 drops as a function of the DoD frequency, also
called as the DoD curve (see Fig. 13 and 14 in [13]). In [13],
we found that the optimal pulse leads to a DoD-curve which
is much flatter than the DoD curve with the standard pulse.
For the standard pulse, the maximum drop velocity variation
over the DoD frequency range is 12ms−1 while with uopt (k)
it is reduced to 4.5ms−1 . The optimal pulse had also reduced
the drop velocity variation at a given DoD frequency.
Besides the drop velocity, another important property is the
drop volume. The relationship between velocity and volume
can be altered for different actuation waveforms. However,
this relationship remains approximately linear for the printhead
considered in this work (see Fig.45 of [15]). In other words, if
the actuation pulse flattens the drop velocity DoD curve then
it will also flatten the drop volume DoD curve. Therefore, to
evaluate the performance of the actuation pulse, plotting the
drop velocity as a function of the DoD frequency is sufficient.
Remark:
By adding an extra quenching pulse, the duration of the
optimal pulse will always be longer than the standard pulse.
The duration of the standard pulse is 5.5 µs while the one of
the optimal pulse (u(k, θopt )) is 19.5 µs. A consequence of the
longer duration of the pulse is that, within the range [0 70kHz]
for the DoD frequency, the optimal pulses will overlap from
a DoD frequency (1/19.5 µs)= 51 kHz. This does not happen
for the standard pulse. For fDoD > 51 kHz, we have decided
to superimpose the overlapping pulses. This means that, if we
want to jet a series of ND drops at a DoD frequency fDoD
larger than 51 kHz, we in fact apply the following voltage
uoverlap (k) to the piezo unit
NX
D −1  
uoverlap (k) = uopt k − iDk
subject to θLB ≤ θ ≤ θU B , (1)
where uopt (k) = u(k, θopt ) the optimal pulse of duration
2
yref (k) − H(q)u(k, θ)
actuation pulses2 .
III. I NKJET C HANNEL AS AN U NCERTAIN S YSTEM
The experimental DoD curve is not completely flat even
though the simulation results predicted an almost complete
2 If T is the sampling time and round(x) rounds a real number x to
s
the nearest integer, Dk is then equal to round( T f1 ). Indeed, at a DoD
s DoD
frequency of fDoD , the time separating two successive actuation pulses is f 1
DoD
second and Dk must be an integer since uopt (k) is a discrete-time signal.
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
attenuation of the residual oscillations. This discrepancy can
be explained by the difference between the actual dynamics
of the inkjet channel and the one described by H(q). Indeed,
H(q) is only a representative of the channel dynamics when
a single drop is jetted in a channel at rest. However, to
construct the DoD curve, we jet a series of drops at a certain
DoD frequency. The dynamics are then different than H(q).
Moreover, since we observe in [13] a different result for
different DoD frequencies, we can expect that the behavior
depends on the DoD frequency.
One possible reason for this frequency-dependent behavior
is the fact that the dynamics of the refilling of the ink channel
after a drop has been jetted is not modeled in the narrow-
gap model which is the basis for H(q). By jetting droplets
at different DoD frequencies, these slow refill dynamics may
change the average meniscus position at the time of droplet
separation. This may in turn change the properties of the linear
model H(q) when obtained at different DoD frequencies.
The above observation is confirmed by system identifica-
tion results obtained at different DoD frequencies, which are
presented in Appendix A. In these results, we observe that the
main variation of the dynamics of the system (characterized
by two resonance peaks) is a variation of the first resonance
peak. The variation observed in the second peak is neglected
since it has a smaller amplitude and since higher frequency
dynamics are known to be of less influence on the ink drop
properties [14].
In the sequel, our uncertain model will be described by
systems where the frequency of the first resonance peak
varies from 75kHz to 86kHz and its damping ratio varies
from 0.0366 to 0.1585. Since we cannot directly identify the
transfer between the piezo input and the meniscus velocity,
the size of the uncertainty is considered not only based on the
system identification results, but also on physical insights. (see
Appendix A). With respect to the frequency and the damping
ratio of the first peak of the nominal model H(q) used in
Section 2, the uncertainty set corresponds to a variation in an
interval of [−7% +7%] for the frequency and [−70% +30%]
for the damping ratio. The nominal model is thus not in the
center of our uncertainty region.
Let us now describe our uncertainty set in more detail. Con-
sider for this purpose the following model structure (sampling
time Ts = 1µs):
! !
q 2 + b 1 q + b2 q 2 + b3 q + b4
Hlow (q) = g 2 . (2)
q + a1 q + a2 q 2 + a3 q + a4
When the parameters are chosen as follows:
b1 = −1.2194, b2 = 0.2194, b3 = −1.7170, b4 = 7.0670,
a1 = −1.6480, a2 = 0.8839, a3 = −1.0040, a4 = 0.8971,
g = −0.0074,
this model structure allows to represent perfectly the low-
frequency dynamics of the nominal model H(q) used in
Section II-C. Note that the higher order dynamics of H(q)
are neglected since they do not contribute at all in the drop
velocity properties [14]. The Bode diagram of Hlow (q) with
4
the above nominal parameters is given by the solid line in
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Frequency response of the transfer function model Hlow (q).
The variation of the first resonance peak has now to be
parameterized. For this purpose, let us first consider the
following continuous-time version of Hlow (q):
! !
g1 s(s + α) s2 + 2ζn3 ωn3 s + ωn3
2
Hlow (s) = 2 2 .
s2 + 2ζn1 ωn1 s + ωn1 s2 + 2ζn2 ωn2 s + ωn2
(3)
The variation in the frequency ωn1 and the damping ratio ζn1
of the first mode is represented in Fig. 5.A.
The parametric uncertainty in the coefficients ωn1 and ζn1
of the continuous-time transfer function is translated into the
uncertainty ∆ on the coefficients a1 and a2 of the discrete-
time transfer function using standard results [16]:
a1 = −2r cos θ, a2 = r2 (4)
p
2 and T is the
where r = e−ζn1 ωn1 Ts , θ = Ts ωn1 1 − ζn1 s
sampling time.
Using these relations, the box-type uncertainty in the param-
eters ωn1 and ζn1 is mapped onto a set ∆ in the parameter
space of the coefficients a1 and a2 as shown in Fig. 5.B. This
is a polytopic uncertainty, which will used to design the robust
actuation pulse. The four vertices of the box-type uncertainty
on ωn1 and ζn1 are mapped on the parameter space of a1
and a2 . These four vertices, when expressed relative to the
nominal values a1,nom = −1.6480 and a2,nom = 0.8839, are
∆1 = [5.93 8.71]T × 10−2 , ∆2 = [1.96 8.25]T × 10−2 ,
∆3 = [−3.85 −4.32]T ×10−2 , ∆4 = [0.55 −2.52]T ×10−2 .
The convex combination of these four vertices forms the set
∆ =conv(∆1 , ∆2 , ∆3 , ∆4 ).
In other words, any perturbation in the parameters ωn1
and ζn1 will bePmapped in perturbation/uncertainty ∆ =
4 P4
[∆(1) ∆(2) ]T = i=1 αi ∆i with i=1 αi = 1 (i.e. ∆ ∈ ∆)
on the coefficients a1 and a2 . These perturbation on the
coefficients a1 and a2 can be represented in the following
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS 5

(A)
40
the robust performance index Jrob (θ) as the worst-case sum
of squared tracking errors:

Relative deviation in ζn1 (×10−2 )

20
N 
X 2
0 Jrob (θ) = max yref (k) − Hlow (q, ∆)u(k, θ) . (7)
∆∈∆
k=0
−20
Remark: In (7), the template yref (k) is the same as in (1).
−40 Indeed yref (k) was constructed with the model H(q) in the
−60
condition where H(q) appropriately describes the system
(one single drop jetted at rest) and is thus an appropriate
−80
−8 −6 −4 −2 0 2 4 6 8
description of the desired meniscus velocity.
Relative deviation in ωn1 (×10−2 )
In order to design the robust actuation pulse, it is important
(B) to be able to compute Jrob (θ) for any arbitrary value of θ or at
10
least to be able to compute a good approximation for Jrob (θ).
Relative deviation in a2 (×10−2 )

Obtaining the exact solution of the optimization problem (7)

LB
is nontrivial, but a good approximation Jrob (θ) for Jrob (θ)
5
can be simply determined by griding the uncertainty space ∆.
In our case, as the parameter space of ∆ is only of dimen-
sion two, gridding can be easily and effectively performed.
0
Let the set S be a fine grid on the parametric uncertainty ∆,
defined as
−5 S = {∆i , i = 1, ..., m, | ∆i ∈ ∆}
−4 −2 0 2 4 6
LB
Relative deviation in a1 (×10−2 ) Then a good lower bound approximation Jrob (θ) of the
performance index Jrob (θ) can be obtained as the maximum
Fig. 5. Parametric uncertainty relative to the nominal value. sum squared error over the m grid points, i.e.:
N 
X 2
LB
manner Jrob (θ) = max
i
yref (k) − Hlow (q, ∆i )u(k, θ) . (8)
∆ ∈S
k=0
a1 (∆) = a1,nom (1 + ∆(1) ) (5) Now, the constrained robust actuation pulse parameter is
(2) thus the solution θrobust of the following optimization problem
a2 (∆) = a2,nom (1 + ∆ ), (6)
LB
with a1,nom and a2,nom defined just above. θrobust = arg min Jrob (θ) subject to θLB ≤ θ ≤ θU B , (9)
θ
Now, the set of dynamical models obtained at various DoD
where, θLB and θU B are vectors containing the lower and the
frequencies can thus be represented by the uncertain inkjet
upper bounds on each element of the parameter vector θ.
system Hlow (q, ∆), ∆ ∈ ∆. The frequency response of the
This is a nonlinear optimization problem which can be
uncertain inkjet system, which is represented by Hlow (q, ∆),
solved offline using standard optimization algorithms. Since,
is shown by shaded area in Fig. 4. LB
we can compute Jrob (θ) for each value of θ, we can use
We have seen in Section II-E that uopt (k) does not com-
gradient-based optimization to find θrobust . Gradient-based
pletely flatten the DoD-curve, because it uses only the nominal LB
optimization is an iterative method. The gradient of Jrob (θ)
model H(q) for the actuation pulse design which does not take
is computed numerically around the current value of θ and
into account the multiple dynamical models at various DoD
then the parameter θ is updated in the gradient direction.
frequencies. In the next section, we will see that the robustness
We use the MATLAB function fmincon for this purpose.
of the actuation pulse can be improved if we consider this set
This function implements a range of optimization techniques.
of multiple dynamical models Hlow (q, ∆) with ∆ ∈ ∆ for the
In our experiments we used the default option which is
actuation pulse design.
sequential quadratic programming.

IV. ROBUST F EEDFORWARD C ONTROL D ESIGN Remarks:

In the previous section, we have seen that the multiple mod- • The griding approach to obtain a tight approximation
LB
els obtained at different DoD frequencies can be represented Jrob (θ) for Jrob (θ) may pose numerical problem when
by uncertain inkjet system Hlow (q, ∆), ∆ ∈ ∆. This uncertain the parameter space of ∆ becomes large or when the
set will be used to design a robust actuation pulse, which will dependency of Jrob (θ) on θ become highly nonlinear. In
ensure a minimum performance for all systems in the polytopic such scenario, it is important to obtain some confident
uncertainty rather than obtaining an optimal actuation pulse bounds on Jrob (θ) without increasing numerical com-
whose performance is only good for one single element of plexity. In [17], we have shown that for any arbitrary
UB
this set (as we did in Section II) For this purpose, we define value of θ an upper bound Jrob (θ) for Jrob (θ), i.e.
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS 6

UB
Jrob (θ) ≤ Jrob (θ), can be obtained as the solution
of a convex optimization problem. However, the de-
sign of the robust constrained actuation pulse remains 7

a nonlinear optimization problem due to the nonlinear

parameterization of u(k, θ) in θ. We have further shown 6

that if we relax the pulse shape constraint, the design

5
of an unconstrained robust actuation pulse is a convex
optimization [17].

Drop Velocity (m/s)

4
• Due to manufacturing tolerances the dynamical behavior
of ink channels inside a printhead may differ. Generally, 3

this is the reason for differences in the performance Drop−1

Drop−2
of inkjet printheads manufactured in a batch. The ink 2 Drop−3
Drop−4
viscosity change caused by temperature change or by Drop−5
Drop−6

slightly different ink can affect the dynamical behavior 1

Drop−7
Drop−8
Drop−9
of a printhead. The proposed method to design the robust Drop−10

pulse is useful to tackle the performance degradation due 0

20 25 30 35 40 45 50
DoD Frequency (kHz)
55 60 65 70

to these manufacturing tolerances.

V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS Fig. 7. Experimental DoD curve with the robust pulse urobust (k).

In this section, we present experimental results to show

the improvements in the drop consistency with the robust
actuation pulse. The robust actuation pulse parameter vector
θrobust obtained after solving the optimization problem (9) is Paper
location

T drop 1,2,3&4
θrobust = [1.5 2.5 1.5 23.0 6.93 2.74 0.4 3.75 −13.22] merged

Note that the time parameters (tr , tw , tf , tdQ ) in the parameter

Position

vector θrobust are expressed in µs.

The robust pulse urobust (k) = u(k, θrobust ) designed in such Satellite drop

a manner is shown in Fig. 6 by the solid blue line.

Nozzle
location

30
Time
Standard pulse ustd (A) Standard pulse
Optimal pulse uopt
25
Robust pulse u
robust
Paper
location
20
drop 1,2&3
merged
15
Input (Volt)

10
Position

0
Satellite drop

−5

−10 Nozzle
location
−15 Time
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Time (µ s) (B) Optimal pulse
Paper
location

Fig. 6. Actuation pulses.

drop 1&2
Position

merged

We have done similar experiments as mentioned in Section

II-E with the robust pulse urobust (k) and obtained the DoD-
curve as shown in Fig. 7. Since the robust pulse urobust (k) is
designed to give a good average performance over the set of Nozzle
location
models represented by H(q, ∆), it delivers better results than Time
the optimal pulse. Now, the drop velocity variation is even less (C) Robust pulse
than 2 ms−1 .
Let us now focus on a single DoD frequency of 48 kHz Fig. 8. Experimental result: 10 drops jetted at DoD frequency 48 kHz.
and let us compare the performance of the three pulses (i.e.,
the standard pulse, the optimal pulse and the robust pulse) at
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS 7

that frequency. Consider for this purpose the flight profile3 of
ten drops jetted at that frequency. This flight profile, from the
nozzle to the paper, is represented in Fig. 8. The vertical axis
represents the position of the ink drop. The starting position is
the nozzle level and the paper is placed at the end position. The
distance between the nozzle and the paper is approximately
2mm.
Ideally, it is required that the 10 drops should be placed at an
equal distance on the paper. For the standard pulse (Fig. 8.A),
the first four drops are slower and they are merged together
and finally, only seven drops reach the paper. Most of the
jetted drops have different velocities. Also, a small and slower
satellite drop is generated after the 10th drop. For the optimal
pulse (Fig. 8.B), the first two drops are slower and they are
caught by the faster third drop. The remaining seven drops
have similar velocities. The satellite drop generated after the
10th drop is faster and gets merged in 10th drop. With the
robust pulse (Fig. 8.C), except for the first two drops, the drop
velocities of the remaining drops are very similar to each other.
There is also no satellite drop generated after the 10th drop.
The overall improvement in the velocity consistency
achieved using the optimal piezo actuation pulse has far-
reaching consequences on the print quality. This is because
the printing paper is placed at approximately 2mm from the
inkjet printhead and the relative speed between the paper and
the printhead is around 1ms−1 . The proposed method reduces
the drop velocity variation to 2.0ms−1 compared to a drop
velocity variation equal to 4.5ms−1 in our previous work [13]
(see Section II-E). This reduction in the drop velocity variation
can reduce the drop placement error by 40% compared to [13].
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper we have proposed a robust feedforward control
by extending the optimization-based technique in [13]. The
actuation pulse design in [13] can provide best results if
the actual system dynamics do not deviate from the model
used in the design. We have observed that the inkjet system
dynamics at different DoD frequencies will not be the same.
Therefore, we have proposed to represent this set of dynamical
opinion, introducing the control aspects (such as positioning
of actuators and sensors) as an extra tuning variable in the
design process could lead to even better performance and a
cheaper design.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge fruitful discussions
with H. Wijshoff, R. Waarsing, P. Klerken, and experimental
support from J. Simons.
A PPENDIX A
VALIDATION USING S YSTEM I DENTIFICATION
It is very difficult to experimentally measure the meniscus
position and the meniscus velocity while jetting an ink drop.
Fortunately, the piezoelectric crystal can be used simultane-
ously as an actuator and as a sensor. The measured piezo
sensor signal is proportional to the rate of change of the
ink-channel pressure. (See Appendix B for more details on
the measurement of the sensor signal.) Therefore, the model
G(q) identified using the piezo sensor as an output is different
from the model Hlow (q) which relates the pulse u(k) to the
meniscus velocity. However, the model G(q) from the piezo
input to the piezo sensor obtained at different fixed DoD
frequencies, give us sufficient insight into the dependency of
Hlow (q) on the DoD frequency, since the meniscus velocity
depends on the channel pressure.
In order to obtain a model from the piezo input to the
piezo sensor we have jetted several ink drops at a given
DoD frequency. The actuation pulse used in the experiment
is the standard actuation pulse. In order to extract sufficient
information from the experimental data, the input signal should
be persistently exciting [19]. Therefore, to improve the order
of excitation of the input signal, a white noise signal with a
small variance is added in between two consecutive actuation
pulses. Fig.9 shows the piezo input and the piezo sensor output
measured during an experiment when ink droplets are jetted
at a fixed DoD frequency of 20 kHz.
150
Piezo sensor output (mV)

models by a compact parametric uncertainty ∆ ∈ ∆ on the 100

50
nominal model of the inkjet system, i.e. Hlow (q, ∆). System 0
identification results are presented to support the choice of the −50

parametric uncertainty ∆ ∈ ∆. In order to damp the residual −100

oscillations in the presence of this parametric uncertainty, the −150

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

optimization-based method is extended to design the robust ac-

25
tuation pulse which minimizes the worst-case squared tracking
20
error for Hlow (q, ∆) with ∆ ∈ ∆. Experimental results have
Piezo Input (V)

15
demonstrated that a considerable improvement in the ink drop 10

consistency can be achieved with the proposed robust pulse. 5

In this paper we have shown how control techniques can im- 0

−5
prove the performance of an inkjet printhead. Note that control 0 10 20 30 40 50
Time (µs)
60 70 80 90 100

is here applied to a printhead which is already designed. In our

3 In order to capture the flight profile of jetted drops, images of the jetted
Fig. 9. Experimental data obtained while jetting at a fixed DoD frequency
drops are captured with a CCD camera at an interval of 10 µs. All the images of 20kHz.
are placed adjacent to each other in the order of the time instant when they
are taken. The composite image constructed in this manner is shown in Fig. 8.
The details about the experimental setup, such as the camera, the microscopic We have used the Identification toolbox of Matlab, in
lens, etc. can be found in [18]. particular we have used Prediction-Error (PE) identification to
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS 8

p1
30
piezo
20
input u output p
10

p2
ink
Magnitude (dB)

−10

Fig. 11. The basic principle to measure the acoustic sensor signal
−20

−30
400

−40 1 2
10 10
Freq. (kHz) 200

0
Fig. 10. Magnitude plot of the transfer function from the piezo input to the

Piezo output (mV)

piezo sensor signal.
−200

obtain a discrete-time transfer function for the experimental −400

data. The transfer function is identified in the Box-Jenkins

model structure. The order of the plant is chosen to be 6 and −600 pfill

the order of the noise model is chosen to be 2. The order of pempty

sensor signal: pfill − pempty
the transfer function is chosen to ensure that the true inkjet −800
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
system dynamics are contained in the model structure. This Time (µs)

can be validated by analyzing the statistical properties of the

residual signal and ensuring that this residual signal is not
correlated with the input signal.
We have done several such experiments at various fixed
DoD frequencies in the operating range of the inkjet printhead,
i.e., from 20 kHz to 70 kHz.
Fig. 10 shows the magnitude plot for the transfer function
from the piezo input voltage (V) to the piezo sensor signal
(mV) obtained at those DoD frequencies. These results confirm
that the main variation of the dynamics of the system (made
up of different resonance peaks) is a variation of the first
resonance peak. The observed variation in the second peak
is neglected since it has a smaller amplitude and since higher
order peaks are known to be of less influence for the ink drop
properties [14].
A PPENDIX B
M EASUREMENT OF THE PIEZO SENSOR SIGNAL
Self-sensing of a piezo unit has been employed in various
applications for simultaneous actuation and sensing. Generally,
the self-sensing unit uses a bridge circuit with a piezo actuator
in one arm and a passive capacitor of equivalent capacitance in
the other arm. This ensures that one can measure the dynamic
behavior of the piezo structure. However, in case of an inkjet
channel, the measured signal p from this bridge circuit consists
of two contributions (see Fig. 11). The first contribution p1 is
the charge generated proportional to the piezo deformation
due to the applied actuation voltage and is referred to as the
direct-path. The second contribution p2 originates from the
force exerted by the ink in the channel and is referred to as
the indirect-path. As the second contribution has information
about the jetting process, it is the required sensor signal and
Fig. 12. Experimental data obtained while jetting at a DoD frequency of
20kHz.
has to be extracted from the measured signal p. Typically,
the contribution of the indirect-path (i.e. the sensor signal
p2 ) is very small compared to the direct-path. Consequently,
it is difficult to measure the sensor signal (indirect-path)
simultaneously while using the piezo as an actuator.
In [5], a hardware compensation method is proposed to
extract the sensor signal p2 . In this method, two ink channels
with a similar piezo capacitance are connected in the bridge
circuit. Out of these two ink channel one ink channel is
filled with the ink and the other ink channel is empty. Thus,
the sensor signal p2 is obtained by subtracting the measured
signals of the two ink channels. However, there are several
drawbacks of this method. A major difficulty is to make the
hardware changes in the ink printhead to create an empty
ink channel. Another drawback is that even though the ink
channel is empty, a small contribution due to the deformation
of the structure is present in the indirect-path. Also, there
will be always a small difference in the piezo capacitance.
In order to overcome these drawbacks, we use the offline
approach proposed in [20] to reconstruct the sensor signal
p2 . We have carried out two experiments and measure the
piezo output signal p from the ink channel by applying the
same actuation pulse at a fixed DoD frequency. The first
experiment is carried out with the ink inside the channel and
the measured piezo output signal pfill = p1 + p2 is stored.
During the second experiment the channel is kept empty
and the measured piezo output signal pempty = p1 is stored.
DRAFT SUBMITTED TO: IEEE JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS 9

Thus, the sensor signal p2 is obtained by offline subtraction

of the signal pempty from the signal pfill . Fig. 12 shows the
signals pfill , pempty and the reconstructed piezo sensor signal
p2 = pfill − pempty at a DoD frequency of 20kHz.

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