Modeling and Control of a Xerographic Two-Component Development Process

Professor George T.-C. Chiu

Purdue University

Mechatronic Systems Research Laboratory

School of Mechanical Engineering

Xerography, also known as electrophotography, is the “dry-marking” process used in the majority of the laser printers, copiers and majority of the digital presses. It utilizes two electrostatic fields to transport micron size charged toner particles from toner supply to a photoconductive media to form a toner image and then to the output media to form the printed image. The development process refers to the process of transporting toner particles from the supply to the photoconductive media that has been exposed to a latent image. It is one of most complex and important step in the xerographic process since the artifacts resulted from this step will not be able to be removed and will likely be accentuated during the subsequent transport and fusing process. After a brief introduction of the current market and technology analysis, we will first present the development of a simplified bilinear Weiner-type control-oriented model for the development process from a complex stochastic experimental model. The control-oriented model successfully predicted/explained the performance degradation that was observed during operations. Given the limited availability of actuators, process control has limited authority to compensate for the degradation of toner particle developability, which results in service call and press downtime. In the second part of the talk, we will present the formulation and the numerical solution of a constrained optimization problem to develop a process control strategy that will maximize the time between service call while maintain acceptable print quality.

Short Bio

George T.-C. Chiu is an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Purdue University. He received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan in 1985 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. From 1994 to 1996, he was an R&D engineer at the Hewlett-Packard Company developing high performance color inkjet printers and multi-function machines. He joined the Purdue University in 1996. His current research interests are mechatronics, modeling and control of digital imaging and printing systems, digital fabrications, motion and vibration control, and healthcare engineering. Dr. Chiu has authored over 70 refereed technical papers as well as 3 US patents and 2 provisional patents. He is currently an associate editor for the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control and the SPIE/IS&T Journal of Electronic Imaging. He is a member of ASME, IEEE, and IS&T.

Friday, November 17, 2006

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Rm. 1500 EECS