System and method for halftone independent temporal color drift correction in hi-addressability xerographic printers

A model-based, halftone independent method for characterizing a high-addressability printer equipped with a plurality of halftone screens, comprising:

• printing a target set of basic patches, said target set including patches having at least two resolutions and comprised of a fundamental binary pattern independent of a halftone screen;
• measuring printer response from the target set;
• modeling a halftone independent characterization of the printer with a mathematical transformation using the measured response;
• modeling a first halftone dependent characterization of the printer with the mathematical transformation to generate a first predicted result using a halftone screen:
• comparing a measured response of the printer using this halftone screen with the predicted result to define a correction factor corresponding to the halftone screen;
• and
• modeling a second halftone dependent characterization of the printer using a predicted response of the fundamental binary pattern and the correction, wherein said model comprises at least a first weighting factor and a second weighting factor, wherein the first weighting factor is greater than the second weighting factor and is applied to measure color for the lower of the at least two resolutions.

A hiqh-addressability printing system equipped with a plurality of halftone screens, comprising:

• memory storing at least one set of basic patches, said set including patches having at least two resolutions;
• a marking system for printing a target set of basic patches, said target set including patches having at least two resolutions and comprised of a fundamental binary pattern independent of a halftone screen;
• a colorimetric device, said device measuring printer response from the target set:
• and
• a color balance controller, said controller using the measured response and modeling a halftone independent characterization of the printer with a mathematical transformation to generate a first predicted result using a halftone screen, said color balance controller, further comparing a measured response of the printer using this halftone screen with the predicted result to define a correction factor corresponding to the halftone screen, and modeling a second halftone dependent characterization of the printer using a predicted response of the fundamental binary pattern and the correction factor wherein the correction factor is stored in memory for use by the controller, and can be expressed as a sum of weighting factors of at least two resolutions.