ANN ARBOR — Advanced Photonix Inc. (NYSE MKT: API) announced that it has received more than $400,000 in orders from our value added resellers for multiple T-Gauge online terahertz sensor systems in three different market segments; extruded plastics, carpet, and paper.
Company officials said they expect these initial design wins will lead to multiple system sales in each market segment over the next several years.
API said the T-Gauge sensor system offers advantages over its competitors — cheifly its ability to measure single or multiple layers with a single-sided sensor configuration. It’s also able to measure more than one physical property at the same time with the same sensor, and is safer than nuclear and x-ray gauges that produce harmful radiation.
Terahertz radiation occupies a spot on the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and infrared light. Little understood and hard to generate before the 1990s, “T-rays” are now being eyed for a variety of testing and security applications. Among their most interesting properties — they “see through” many materials, but without packing the damaging, ionizing punch of X-rays.
The initial extruded plastics application is to measure the individual layer thickness of coated foam food containers. Today companies use 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 mesh carpet 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.
The paper market sale to a significant value-added reseller is focused on application development prior to full online deployment. The T-Gauge system can measure basis weight, moisture content and non-contact caliper thickness. The incumbent technology, beta gauge, cannot make multiple measurements and requires three to four sensors, where as the T-Gauge system only needs one sensor that makes the measurements all at the same spot for greater process correlation. Successful application development could open up a significant paper market for the T-Gauge sensors.
“These recent T-Gauge purchase orders are evidence of our growing penetration and market leadership in multiple industrial markets based on the strength of our technology and value added reseller channel,” said Richard Kurtz, CEO of Advanced Photonix Inc. “The fact that our gauging solution can satisfy such a broad range of applications and can provide solutions that other sensors cannot, positions us well to grow rapidly as the early adopters of terahertz sensors lead the way to volume product adoption in each market.”
More at http://www.advancedphotonix.com.