Inkjet printer control using LabVIEW

• Main Author: Chen, Xiufang.
• Other Authors: Ling Keck Voon
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/17967
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Today, Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology is gaining momentum and the worldwide FPGA market is expected to grow from $1.9 billion in 2005 to $2.75 billion by 2010 [1]. This modern FPGA can be a combination of logic blocks, interconnects and embedded microprocessor plus peripherals and is called “system on a programmable chip”. The reason why FPGA is so successful as it being programmable, allows selfconfiguration to implement any custom hardware functionality user wants instead of it being application specific. As such, the applications for FPGA are in many areas. The main objective of this project is to control an inkjet printer using LabVIEW, and LabVIEW FPGA Module. The FPGA used here is National Instrument’s PCI 7831R, which the PWM for the dc motor, quadrature encoder etcetera are realized in it. In addition, to ensure that the print head nozzle can print at appropriate position or at appropriate velocity, the crux lies in the motion control of the dc motor, and thus PID velocity controller will be done. The first step is to get familiarized with the components like how the DC motor and linear encoder work. Then followed by the understanding of the LabVIEW environment, in order to write program with it. Next, implement the PID control algorithm on the FPGA, and tune the Proportional, Integral and Derivative parameters to achieve the best possible performance. After achieving all these, finally the FPGA program is to be downloaded and embedded into the FPGA target. Finally, at the end of this project, what has been achieved is the velocity control system, which allows the user to set a desired velocity of the print head, and move it over a displacement. Most important, are the skills and knowledge acquired from this project, such as LabVIEW Graphical Programming Language, understanding of PID Control, FPGA, sensor and actuator.