Design of a color card printer robot

This paper presents the development of color card printer robot. The color card printer robot utilizes dye-sublimation/resin thermal transfer printing technology to achieve its direct-to-card photo-quality output. The design includes the printer robot mechanisms, control circuits system, control firmware, communication interface, and color image processing algorithms. The card used here is a standard CR-80 PVC card with a size of 54 mm /spl times/ 86 mm and the printing resolution is 300 dpi. The control circuits system is based on a digital signal processor (DSP) and a FPGA, which is a programmable logic device to contain embedded arrays, offering up to 100,000 gates. The digital logic modules implemented in FPGA include DRAM access module, data and I/O control module, communication control unit, LCD display module, keypad, sensors module, thermal printing head (TPH) control module, and motors control module. The specifications of the color card printer robot are also listed.