Monitoring apparatus

Abstract

There is provided a monitoring apparatus for preventing paper breakage. For this monitoring apparatus, a light source 9 is disposed on the upper side of a wet paper 1, and a light emitting face thereof faces downward. An operation-side camera 5a and a drive-side camera 5b are disposed on the side opposite to the light source 9 with respect to the wet paper 1, and a lens face thereof faces upward. Light 9a of the light source 9 passes through the wet paper 1 after being reflected from a mirror 11, and is caught by the cameras 5a and 5b. Thus, the cameras 5a and 5b photograph a silhouette (image) of the light 9a of the light source 9, which has passed through the wet paper 1. This image is sent to an image processing unit 6, where the image is processed. The coordinates of a boundary line such that the wet paper 1 separates from a center roll 2 is detected from the images photographed from two directions. This coordinate value is sent to a computer 8. The computer 8 converts the value into a movement amount in each sampling cycle to determine the change amount and frequency of a separation point 3 and the whole shape of separation lines 3a and 3b. Thereby, a machine trouble resulting in paper breakage can be predicted.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.