API T-Gauge Systems continue industrial market penetration

USA: Advanced Photonix announced that it has received over $400,000 in orders from our value added resellers for multiple T-Gauge online terahertz (THz) sensor systems in three different market segments; extruded plastics, carpet, and paper.

The company expects these initial design wins will lead to multiple system sales in each market segment over the next several years. The T-Gauge system, manufactured by API, is the only fully hardened THz system that is suitable for online gauging applications.

The primary advantages that the T-Gauge sensor offers in these segments compared to alternative sensors is its ability to measure single and/or multiple layers with a single-sided sensor configuration, its ability to measure more than one physical property at the same time with the same sensor, and its inherent safety compared to nuclear and x-ray gauges which produce harmful radiation.

These capabilities provide a significant return on investment for continuous, online process control measurements and acceptance is growing for this technology.

The initial extruded plastics application is to measure the individual layer thickness of coated foam food containers. Today companies utilize a combination of nucleonic, x-ray or infrared gauges to measure the total thickness. The T-Gauge system is ideal where space is limited and multiple sensors cannot be deployed because one T-Gauge sensor can measure individual layer thickness and total thickness simultaneously.

The initial carpet application is targeted at measuring the amount of latex applied to the mesh backing, which is an important factor in carpet quality. The T-Gauge is currently the only sensor technology that has been able to make the desired measurement. The difficulty for carpet manufacturers is that the measurement needs to be single-sided, which is easily done with the T-Gauge single-sided configuration.