Design and Development of a New Edge Sensor for Web Guiding
Existing edge sensors use the concept of blocking/unblocking to determine web lateral position. The most commonly used sensors employ either ultrasonic or optical signals to detect the web edge position by measuring the amount of signal attenuation due to blocking/unblocking of the signal. The main drawback of this sensing method is nonuniform signal attenuation for web material variations and opacity. The research in this paper develops a new sensor which utilizes the phenomena of light scattering from the web edge and the directional sensitivity of optical fibers to determine the web lateral position.