Electrohydrodynamic Printing Droplet Volume Control Using Supervised Learning

Abstract:

Electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing technology can generate femtoliter-scale droplets, which provides significant advantages in additive manufacturing. With these advantages, electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing technology shows broad application prospects in repairing micro/nano-scale complex structures in flexible electronic devices and high-resolution displays. During the repair process, precise control of printed droplet volume is required according to target volume requirements. However, due to the complexity of the printing process, traditional theoretical and simulation methods face challenges in achieving effective volume control. This paper proposes a supervised learning-based electrohydrodynamic droplet volume control method. The algorithm innovatively establishes new strategy samples through historical datasets, which include the deviation between current droplet volume and target volume, current process parameters, and changes in process parameters for the next iteration. Based on a feedforward control strategy, we employ a multilayer perceptron (MLP) supervised algorithm to achieve printing parameter recommendation, significantly improving printing efficiency. Volume control experiments conducted on the established electrohydrodynamic printing platform show that the standard volume filling rate can reach 98%, and the control can be completed within a single control cycle.

• Periodical: Advanced Engineering Forum (Volume 59)
• Pages: 17-22
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/p-JtK077
• Online since: June 2026
• Authors: Zi Wei Zhao, Wei Chen, Ying Jie Zhu, Jian Kui Chen*
• Keywords: Electrohydrodynamic Inkjet Printing, Manufacturing System, Open-Loop Control

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