Steering guide-based lateral control for roll-to-roll printed electronics

This paper presents the lateral displacement control of a moving web using a steering guide system which can be an important part in roll-to-roll (R2R) printed electronics. In general, R2R systems in printed electronics need a long drying section for the reduction of time and cost by reducing the delay of drying time. However, the lateral web displacement can be a worse problem because the web should be affected by the air blow from the dryer. Therefore, the lateral position control of long span will play a significant role in the R2R production process for better product quality. In our work, PID control method is designed to control the lateral displacement of a moving web by using a steering guide system, and simulations and experiments were performed to test the method.