Industrial Roll-to-Roll Printing Register Control Using a Pulse-Width Subdivision Detection Algorithm

• Main Authors: Chen, B. (Author), Chen, Y. (Author), Liu, B. (Author), Xie, J. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI 2023
• Subjects: color mark detection; industrial printing; pulse width subdivision; register control; roll-to-roll printing
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher; View in Scopus
• ISBN: 20763417 (ISSN)
• DOI: 10.3390/app13095307

Featured Application: The typical application of register control technology proposed in this paper is the industrial gravure printing production line. It is also used in various other kinds of industrial production equipment, such as die-cutting machines, bronzing machines and offset presses. The performance of the register control system is critical to printing production efficiency. Register control systems are a necessary technical measure and an important means of large-scale roll-to-roll industrial printing production. They are effective in reducing the generation of unqualified printing products and improving the accuracy and stability of industrial printing production lines. In this paper, we propose a new register control algorithm that effectively improves the detection accuracy and compensation speed of printing register control systems. Firstly, according to the principle of register color mark detection, a new pulse-width subdivision detection algorithm is proposed, which can greatly improve the accuracy of register error detection without increasing the resolution of external encoder pulse signals. Then, the optimized error compensation method can adaptively adjust the corresponding system parameters, such as the output intensity, error filtering period and output period, according to the current register error size. The new output method greatly improves the error compensation speed without increasing error oscillation. Lastly, the experimental results of 0.01 mm show that the proposed control approach significantly improves the detection accuracy of register errors. Furthermore, the new control algorithm can be applied in the industrial field. © 2023 by the authors.