Roller assembly having pre-aligned for on-line thickness measurements

Abstract

An apparatus for measuring the thickness of a film on a production line or the like. The apparatus includes a moveable member in contact with the film. The moveable member rotates about a fixed member and includes a transparent region. The apparatus also includes an optical probe attached to the fixed member. The optical probe has an optical fiber for coupling a light signal to the film through the transparent region of the moveable member and for returning light reflected from the film to a receiver for determining the thickness of the film. The optical probe may also include a lens assembly for imaging the light signal onto the film and imaging the reflected light signals back into the optical probe. The optical probe may also include a partially reflecting reference reflector for simplifying the analysis of multi-layer films.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.