A control-oriented survey of xerographic systems: basic concepts to new frontiers

Xerography is the dry ink marking process underlying electrophotographic copiers and printers. Xerographic systems have had commercial success for over 45 years and currently drive a segment of the printing market valued at over $150 billion worldwide. Especially in the case of color printing, performance requirements are stringent and must be achieved under uncertain conditions. Of course, the notion of feedback is motivated by such systems. Yet, xerographic systems have not received widespread attention in the control literature. Nevertheless, control has played an important role in the evolution of xerographic marking engines. The purpose of this paper is to motivate xerographic systems as an application area for the systems and control community. Because this paper is tutorial, we begin with a control-oriented description of the xerographic process followed by an overview of the digital printing industry. Next, we provide an illustration of the use of control in DocuColor iGen3, a state-of-the-art digital color press. Finally, we identify a set of challenging modeling and control problems relevant to xerographic systems and draw connections to the literature.