IR sensors and printer ink

Fujmon

I am coordinating a robotics competition called RoboFest Hawaii. One of the challenges involves having robots navigate a simulated lava landscape to locate lava vents to deploy instruments into them. We are representing heat by tonal variations with dark areas being cool and lighter areas being hotter. I am printing the 4' x 8' playing field on my HP DesignJet 5000 6-color printer. Unfortunately, the ink has no IR signature and the Sharp detectors see no difference between black and white (or any other colors in between).

My question is, does anyone know of an ink or printer that can be used for our challenge? The Parallax mini-sumo playing field (printed on heavy paper stock) works perfectly, but the support at Parallax tells me they use an inkjet printer for this. I don't think they know for sure and I am hoping someone on this forum does.

Many thanks,
Gary Fujihara
AstroDay Institute
Hilo, Hawaii

Post Edited (Fujmon) : 7/23/2007 9:45:54 PM GMT

Bean

See if you can find a printing place that has an HP designjet plotter. These use inkjet cartridges so I assume they will work like an inkjet.
They can print on roll paper, so a 4' x 8' should be doable.

Bean.

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Fujmon

Hi Bean, I have an HP DesignJet 5000 6-color plotter, but the printed copy is invisible in the infrared. I don't know if this is an issue with the printer using dyes instead of pigments (that inks use). Thanks, gary