Patent Grant
11890872
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The present invention relates to aerosol jet printing and in particular to improved control system for aerosol jet printers.
Aerosol jet printing uses a directed aerosol stream of print liquid to deposit material directly on a substrate in a printed pattern. An example aerosol jet printer employs a reservoir of print liquid providing a printing material in a carrier liquid, for example, solvent. The print liquid is aerosolized, for example, by an ultrasonic atomizer positioned in line with a flow of carrier gas, and the aerosol of carrier gas and print liquid pass to a print nozzle that directs a jet of aerosolized material toward the substrate. The jet is focused, typically to be smaller than the nozzle diameter, through the use of a sheath gas which surrounds the jet as it exits the nozzle to corral the jet.
The atomized material in the jet travels a few millimeters from the jet nozzle to the substrate where the carrier liquid evaporates leaving the printing material. Motion of the print nozzle over the substrate allows arbitrary patterns to be printed in single or multiple layers, the latter allowing three-dimensional structures to be fabricated.
The ability to tightly deposit a pattern of print material on the substrate, necessary for high resolution printing, is a complex function of the qualities of the print liquid, nozzle design, atomization process, environmental temperature and humidity, print speed, and gas flows. Typically, these and other factors combine to produce a substantial variation in print resolution between printing tasks or during a prolonged printing operation.
It is known to provide real-time imaging of a printed line produced by the printer, for example, using a camera focused on the substrate. Images from the camera can be used to deduce a line width as well as other properties of the line, such as line consistency and density, edge smoothness, overspray, and the like. It is contemplated that these measurements of the printed line can be used for a feedback control of the printer process to provide improved printing consistency.
While real-time measurement of the printed line of an aerosol jet printer provides a good indication of whether the printing process is correctly configured, the complexity of the printing process means that this endpoint measurement may not uniquely indicate the necessary process variables that need to be adjusted when print line quality decreases. The present invention makes a droplet field measurement of the aerosol jet from the nozzle before it is deposited on the substrate, this droplet field measurement allowing the characterization, on a droplet-by-droplet basis, of velocity and mass distributions. It is believed that the information from these distributions, lost after material is deposited on the substrate, allows superior control of the process variables that ultimately affect line quality
In one embodiment, the invention provides an aerosol jet printer having a print liquid reservoir holding a liquid to be printed. An atomizer receives a carrier gas and the liquid to be printed to provide an aerosol of the print liquid having print liquid droplets in the carrier gas. A print nozzle movable with respect to a substrate receives the aerosol and a shield gas and directs the aerosol toward a substrate as a jet as enveloped by the shield gas. A droplet field camera resolves print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate providing images to a control system controlling a flow of aerosol and shield gas and the movement of the print nozzle with respect to the substrate. Distributions of print liquid droplet properties from the images permits control of at least one of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of print liquid droplets.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to greatly improve characterization of the printing process by direct imaging of the droplet field of the jet. To the extent that different droplet distributions may manifest themselves as similar problems with the printed line, knowledge of actual droplet distributions allows improved printer parameter adjustments not available when measuring the printed line only.
The aerosol jet printer may include a user interface communicating with the control system to output a measure of the distribution of droplet properties and receive inputs from a user controlling at least one of carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the output measure of the distribution of droplet properties.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to provide improved information to the user for manual control of the printing process.
Alternatively, or in addition, the control system may implement a feedback control of at least one of carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the distribution of droplet properties.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to permit improved feedback control of the complex aerosol jet printing process.
The control system may determine a distribution of velocity of the print liquid droplets in the jet providing a count of print liquid droplets within a set of different velocity ranges.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to provide an accurate measurement of droplet print velocity variation such as may affect qualities such as line overspray or influence droplet size variations.
Alternatively, or in addition, the control system may determine a distribution of sizes of the print liquid droplets in the jet providing a count of print liquid droplets within a set of different size ranges.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to provide an accurate measurement of droplet size variation, again which may affect overspray and line consistency.
In one embodiment, the atomizer may provide an ultrasonic transducer and the control system may further permit control of the ultrasonic transducer according to the distribution of print liquid droplets.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to use the improved statistics available from direct observation of the particles in the jet to adjust the atomization process, for example, to produce a more uniform droplet size distribution.
The aerosol jet printer may, in some embodiments, include a particle-loading camera resolving print liquid droplets in the jet as it moves toward the substrate to determine particle loading in the droplets. In this case, the control system may determine a distribution of particle loading of droplets in the jet providing a count of droplets within a set of different of particle-loading ranges permitting control of the ultrasonic transducer according to the distribution of print liquid droplets.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to provide an indication of variation in particle loading offering more insight than average particle loading for the control of the ultrasonic transducer and carrier gas.
The aerosol jet printer may further include a print liquid reservoir temperature controller allowing control of the print liquid temperature according to the distribution of particle loading in the print liquid droplets.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to capture the relationship between print liquid temperature and droplet property distribution for improved process control.
The aerosol jet printer may further include a substrate camera resolving a printed line on the substrate after the jet strikes the substrate to determine line characteristics and wherein the control system further permits control of the carrier gas flow and shield gas flow according to the line characteristics.
It is thus a feature of at least one embodiment of the invention to combine jet characteristic measurements with line measurements for improved process control.
These particular objects and advantages may apply to only some embodiments falling within the claims and thus do not define the scope of the invention.
Referring now to
The x-y-z table may be of conventional design incrementally moving the substrate 14 controllably in three Cartesian axes having a z-axis aligned with axis 18, for example, using stepper or servo motors. This relative motion allows the jet 16 of aerosolized print liquid 17 to paint lines 20 on the substrate 14 describing arbitrary shapes and areas in two dimensions and, by building up material in multiple layers, arbitrary volumes in three dimensions.
Referring also to
The ultrasonic atomizer provides a reservoir 26 holding a print liquid 17 generally comprised of a print material 30 in a suspending carrier liquid 34. Example print materials 30 include conductive material such as carbon or silver particles printing conductive electronic traces or the like, ceramic materials, and even biological matter such as proteins and strands of DNA.
The reservoir 26 may be immersed, for example, in a water bath 36 coupling the print liquid 17 acoustically with the ultrasonic transducer 38 serving, when the transducer is active, to generate a mist of aerosolized print liquid 17 above the surface of the non-aerosolized print liquid 17. A carrier gas 40 controlled by a valve 42 is introduced into the reservoir 26 through an inlet 44 that suspends and scavenges the aerosolized print liquid 17 and carries it down the central lumen 22 toward an exit orifice of print nozzle 50 of the print head 12.
The water bath 36 may communicate with a thermocouple or other temperature sensor 31 and a temperature control element 33 allowing control of the water temperature bath and hence the temperature of the print liquid 17. The temperature control element 33 may be a resistive heater or a Peltier device providing heating or cooling.
A sheath gas 52, controlled by a valve 53, may be introduced into a deposition head 54 around the central lumen 22 of the print head 12 to create a coaxial sheath of gas passing out of the exit orifice of the print nozzle 50 of the print head 12 in a ring around the aerosolized print liquid 17 to focus the jet 16. Generally, the ratio of the volume of the sheath gas 52 to the carrier gas 40 defines a focus ratio which may be adjusted by adjusting the volume flow of each of the carrier gas 40 and the sheath gas 52 as will be discussed below.
A high-speed high-resolution droplet imaging camera 60 having an optical axis 61 parallel to and positioned above the printed surface of the substrate 14 allows imaging of the jet 16 sufficient to freeze and resolve the individual droplets of the aerosolized print liquid 17 in rapidly acquired sequential images. The optical axis 61 is generally perpendicular to axis 18, and a focal plane 62 of the camera 60 provides sufficient depth of field to fully encompass the jet 16.
A laser 63 is positioned to direct a beam of light 64 in a frequency range of the camera 60 at an angle to the optical axis 61 of the imaging camera 60 to illuminate the jet 16 and its individual particles through backscatter. The laser 63 may be pulsed to “freeze” the droplets in the image in the manner of a stroboscope, allowing a wide variety of CCD type cameras to obtain successive images spaced apart by a few microseconds so that two images of a set of droplets at different times can be obtained within the field of view of the camera 60. The laser 63 and the camera 60 together provide a camera system producing the necessary images, although the invention contemplates other camera systems, for example, having continuous illumination and high-speed shutters or the like. For improved contrast, a light-absorbing background 66 may be placed opposite the camera 60 along the optical axis 61 and across the substrate 14.
An optional particle-loading camera 70 may be positioned to have an optical axis 72 orthogonal to the axis 61 to receive light from, for example, an infrared backlight 74. The particle loading camera 70 has a resolution in time and space comparable to camera 60 and is used for measuring light absorption by the droplets of the jets 16 to deduce particle loading, that is, the amount of print material 30 in the droplets 32.
A third optional print imaging camera 76 may be directed generally downwardly to the substrate 14 to provide imaging of the print line 20 for assessing that line quality as will be described below. Illumination for the third imaging camera 76 may be provided by a ring light 77 or the like centered about axis 18 to provide even illumination to the printed surface of the substrate 14.
A controller 82 having at least one processor 84 communicates with an electronic memory 86 holding a stored program 88, as will be discussed in more detail below, and operating to control the various components of the printer 10. The controller 82 may communicate with a control terminal 90, for example, including a graphic control screen keyboard and mouse and the like, allowing for user input and output as is generally understood in the art.
The controller 82 may receive signals from process sensors including the cameras 60, 70, and 76 (in the form of sequential image frames) as well as from the temperature sensor 31. In addition, the controller 82 may provide signals to control process variables, for example, the flow rate of the carrier gas 40 and sheath gas 52 (via valves 42 and 53) as well as the temperature control element 33. In addition, the controller 82 may provide control signals to the laser 63 and infrared backlight 74 for turning them on and off and signals to the x-y-z table 19 to maneuver it during the printing process to provide the desired print.
Referring now to
A second task 88b (shown in
As indicated by process block 98, this process begins the acquisition of at least two sequential images 100 and 100′ by camera 60 (shown superimposed in
For each pair of droplet images, for example, droplet images 32a and 32a, a droplet velocity may be determined by measuring a distance 102 between the centers of the droplet images 32a and 32a′ divided by the known time between the capture of images 100 and 100′. Velocities for each droplet 32 may be collected together to produce a velocity distribution 104 and, as indicated by process block 99, describe the statistics of the velocities of all the droplets 32 common within the field-of-view of the images 100 and 101′ in the manner of a histogram. This velocity distribution 104 provides a variety of statistical measures including average velocity and velocity spread, for example, measured by standard deviations.
Referring still to
Together the velocity measurements and mass measurements can provide a mass flow rate distribution and its statistics, including average mass flow rate and mass flow rate spread. This measure may prove important in ensuring a desired density of the print line 20 for a given print speed.
Referring to
Referring now to
Referring now to
In this embodiment, the user may also be presented with various composite statistics 132, for example, mass flow, deduced from the velocity and measured mass or size of the droplets 32 as discussed above.
The display screen 120 may provide a set of controls 134 (for example, graphically depicted sliders) allowing the user to set the various control variables of the printer 10 including temperature of the print liquid, carrier gas flow rate, shield gas flow rate, or alternatively focus ratio (a ratio of carrier gas to shield gas) as well as ultrasound power to the transducer 38. In this way adjustment of the printer 10 may be performed interactively.
Alternatively, and referring to
During the control process, sensing information 148 from the cameras 60, 70, 76 and temperature sensor 31 may be statistically processed per process block 150, as discussed above, extracting distributions 104, 106, 110 and line information 114, and these statistics 151, generally corresponding in category to the information of the setpoints 142, fed back to the summing block 152 to produce the error signal 143.
It will generally be understood that a wide variety of other control strategies may be adopted using the statistics 151, for example, replacing the multivariable regression 144 with a trained neural network or the like. Generally, these techniques contemplate a set of experiments to determine a regression or a training set for artificial intelligence techniques.
Certain terminology is used herein for purposes of reference only, and thus is not intended to be limiting. For example, terms such as “upper”, “lower”, “above”, and “below” refer to directions in the drawings to which reference is made. Terms such as “front”, “back”, “rear”, “bottom” and “side”, describe the orientation of portions of the component within a consistent but arbitrary frame of reference which is made clear by reference to the text and the associated drawings describing the component under discussion. Such terminology may include the words specifically mentioned above, derivatives thereof, and words of similar import. Similarly, the terms “first”, “second” and other such numerical terms referring to structures do not imply a sequence or order unless clearly indicated by the context.
When introducing elements or features of the present disclosure and the exemplary embodiments, the articles “a”, “an”, “the” and “said” are intended to mean that there are one or more of such elements or features. The terms “comprising”, “including” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements or features other than those specifically noted. It is further to be understood that the method steps, processes, and operations described herein are not to be construed as necessarily requiring their performance in the particular order discussed or illustrated, unless specifically identified as an order of performance. It is also to be understood that additional or alternative steps may be employed.
References to “a microprocessor” and “a processor” or “the microprocessor” and “the processor,” can be understood to include one or more microprocessors that can communicate in a stand-alone and/or a distributed environment(s), and can thus be configured to communicate via wired or wireless communications with other processors, where such one or more processor can be configured to operate on one or more processor-controlled devices that can be similar or different devices. Furthermore, references to memory, unless otherwise specified, can include one or more processor-readable and accessible memory elements and/or components that can be internal to the processor-controlled device, external to the processor-controlled device, and can be accessed via a wired or wireless network.
It is specifically intended that the present invention not be limited to the embodiments and illustrations contained herein and the claims should be understood to include modified forms of those embodiments including portions of the embodiments and combinations of elements of different embodiments as come within the scope of the following claims. All of the publications described herein, including patents and non-patent publications, are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties
To aid the Patent Office and any readers of any patent issued on this application in interpreting the claims appended hereto, applicants wish to note that they do not intend any of the appended claims or claim elements to invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) unless the words “means for” or “step for” are explicitly used in the particular claim.
| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2013210270 | Oct 2013 | JP |
| Entry |
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| In situ sensor-based monitoring and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of Aerosol Jet printing (AJP) process. In international Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, vol. 4903, p. V002T04A049. American Society of Mechanical Engineering, 2016, pp. 1-13; Virginia, US. IDS NPL citation No. 1. |
| In situ sensor-based monitoring and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling of Aerosol Jet printing (AJP) process. In international Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, vol. 4903, p. V002T04A049. American Society of Mechanical Engineering, 2016, pp. 1-13; Virginia, US. U.S. IDS NPL citation No. 1. |
| Salary, Roozbeh et al.; “In situ sensor-based monitoring and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling Aerosol Jet printing (AJP) process.” In International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, vol. 49903, p. V002T04A049. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2016. pp. 1-13; Virginia US. |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20230057395 A1 | Feb 2023 | US |
