Monitoring upstream machine wires and felts

A method associated with a sensing roll and a mating roll for collecting roll data comprising:

• generating a respective sensor signal from each of a plurality of sensors located at axially spaced-apart locations of the sensing roll, wherein each respective sensor signal is generated when each sensor enters a region of a nip between the sensing roll and the mating roll during each rotation of the sensing roll;
• the sensing roll and mating roll located relative to one another to create the nip therebetween, wherein a web of material travels through the nip from an upstream direction to a downstream direction and a continuous band, arranged to travel around in a loop pattern, contacts at least a region of the web of material upstream from the nip;
• generating a periodically occurring time reference associated with each rotation of the continuous band around the loop pattern;
• and
• receiving the respective sensor signal generated by each sensor and, after receiving the respective sensor signal:
• determining a particular one of the plurality of sensors which generated the respective sensor signal,
• based upon an amount of time that elapsed between when the respective sensor signal was generated and a most recent time reference, identifying one of a plurality of time-based tracking segments associated with the continuous band, wherein each of the plurality of time-based tracking segments is, respectively, associated with a different amount of elapsed time, and
• storing the respective sensor signal to associate the respective sensor signal with the identified one time-based tracking segment.