Intelligent Hypermodular Printing

Tightly Integrated Parallel Printing, or TIPP, is enabling the use of multiple print engines in an integrated system. With hypermodular TIPP, we are envisioning printers that would be built from modules like pieces in a Lego set. We are in our third year of demonstrating how such printing systems could be built. The hypermodular paper path is a toolkit of components that allow one to build almost any kind of paper path. Its companion is intelligent control software that adapts itself to any configuration autonomously, optimizes the available functions, compensates for faults, and re-routes sheets on the fly. Together, these technologies could revolutionize how printing systems will be built in the future.

After an overview of our work on hypermodular printing, I will also speculate a bit about our long-term trajectory. Xerox products already are some of the most sophisticated robots available commercially. The future is in multi-function machines that in many respects will be “self-aware.” They will monitor and adapt their processes, negotiate operation with the user, and try to provide their functionality under almost any circumstance.

Presenter(s)

Markus Fromherz is a Principal Engineer and manager of the Intelligent Systems Lab at PARC. His research interests are in the domain of intelligent embedded software. He has led and contributed to several research, development, and technology transfer efforts on intelligent control systems for Xerox. Markus received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1991 from the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and his M.S. in CS in 1987 from ETH Zurich.