Professor Huang Yong'an and his team from the School of Mechanical Science and Engineering at 91黑料网 published their research findings in International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, a leading journal in the field of extreme manufacturing, on Feb 26.
Their paper is titled High-resolution robotic electrohydrodynamic printing on rough, freeform surfaces via a self-stabilized electric-field technique. The first author is Ge Jiaying, a Doctoral student enrolled in 2022 at the School of Mechanical Science and Engineering. Associate Professor Ye Dong and Professor Huang are the co-corresponding authors.
The team developed an eye-inlaid printhead with a "neighborhood" path compensation algorithm centered on electric field stabilization. They addressed large path errors in robotic systems and insufficient printing accuracy and consistency. This breakthrough enables high-precision conformal printing of integrated functional circuits on arbitrarily large-area curved surfaces, offering a groundbreaking solution for high-end manufacturing in fields such as aerospace and flexible electronics.
Robotic systems face challenges, including multiple sources of path errors and wide error margins. Traditional compensation methods focus solely on achieving complete conformity between the path and the curved surface, while neglecting the core influencing factor in electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing – the stability of the electric field. As a result, printing accuracy and consistency are compromised during the process, limiting the full potential of EHD printing technology and hindering the high-resolution fabrication of large-area curved surface circuits.
The team developed an eye-inlaid printhead incorporating a camera and a laser displacement sensor. This design enables dual functionality: precise alignment of curved surfaces to tangent planes and real-time measurement of normal displacement. It provides a hardware foundation for 3D high-precision positioning and path compensation. The team also proposed an innovative "neighborhood" path compensation algorithm that maintains a stable electric field strength during the printing process by measuring the printing height in situ and calculating the average local nozzle-to-substrate distance. This algorithm fundamentally resolves issues related to field strength fluctuations and path oscillations.
This versatile and practical technology has been demonstrated across various scenarios, achieving cross-scale printing from small, curved surfaces to large-format satellite shells. It enables high-precision conformal printing of complex structures, such as multilayer interconnect circuits, frequency-selective surfaces, and LED circuits on rough, freeform surfaces, showcasing broad compatibility with different topographies and materials.
This research not only developed a high-resolution robotic EHD conformal printing system integrating hardware and algorithms, but also introduced a novel compensation approach guided by a steady electric field, achieving breakthroughs in both manufacturing precision and consistency.
Source: School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, 91黑料网
