Plan On It

Printing technology has come a long way since Johannes Gutenberg created his first mechanical movable-type printing press. More recent advancements brought us the dot matrix printer, inkjet printing, and laser printing among other technologies. A commonality shared by all of these techniques is that they are, by and large, used to deposit patterns of ink onto sheets of paper. But it is a big world, so why are we constrained by sheets of paper? We need to break free and color outside of the lines sometimes! Rise up in revolt against the tyranny of A4 paper!

My apologies — I can get very animated when it comes to printing. On that topic, printing itself just got a whole lot more animated with the introduction of HP’s robot that autonomously prints blueprints onto construction sites. This work is normally done by trained surveyors so that the construction workers know exactly where everything is to be built. Because of the complexity of the work, and the precision required, survey crews commonly need several weeks to complete the job for a large project. The robot, named SitePrint, on the other hand, can finish the work in just a few days.

SitePrint is more than just a printer on wheels — it is outfitted with an array of sensors that help it to navigate construction sites and avoid obstacles. While the robot largely works autonomously as it goes about its task, it does need to communicate with a base station to help it get its bearings. A human needs to initially take the controls at the base station to get the robot positioned correctly before it starts drawing, and SitePrint also stays in communication with the base station to obtain positioning information. Having a nearby source of positioning data is crucial as GPS signals are not available when the robot is working indoors.

To accommodate as many use cases as possible, the robot features interchangeable printing tools that allow it to print on a variety of surfaces, and also to draw special features like dotted lines, arcs, points, or text. That versatility is sure to be put to the test in the field. Given the small size of SitePrint, it is easy to pick up and carry from one job to the next. And with the pair of rechargeable batteries that are included, the robot can perform a full day’s work. You will have to wait before you deploy one for your own projects, however. The robot is not yet available for sale, although HP will start rolling out the devices in an early release program starting this month.

To make sure the device is ready for real world uses, HP has been testing SitePrint on a number of construction projects — 80 to date. These projects have taken place in airports, hospitals, and residential buildings. Perhaps we will see these little robots hard at work on construction sites everywhere after the full-scale rollout planned for next year.