Roll-2-Roll Technologies has adapted its sensing technology released in September to also handle line guiding. In September 2015, Roll-2-Roll Technologies released the ARIS Web Guiding System. Many of the features ARIS provides to converters and label printers to save time and money, such as automatically adapting to any materials, no setup, calibration or other manual adjustment operation, can now be experienced in line, contrast and center guiding. According to the company, one sensor can now handle any type of web guiding. 

In line detection mode, the sensor can handle a solid or intermittent line, or a line that is adjacent or crossed by a pattern. Along with the line guiding features, ARIS features two new developments in lateral guide technology to better sense and control material to help with these issues. The first feature is the patented material agnostic sensor technology, which is unaffected by changes in materials and environmental conditions, such as ambient light, sound vibrations or ringing. This sensor can detect and adapt to any non-porous materials, nonwovens, or transparent materials without time wasting setups or calibrations.

The second feature is a patented adaptive control algorithm, which immediately corrects after disturbances, splices or changes in material. The sensor eliminates time-consuming initial setups, sensor and controller calibrations and other manual adjustments.

These technologies were developed at Oklahoma State University based on research and development funded by the National Science Foundation and Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science and Technology.

The material agnostic sensor has a sensing resolution of 63.5 micrometer with a sensing range of 16 or 48 mm. The sensor provides a true absolute lateral position of the material irrespective of the materials’ porosity and opacity, making it suitable for many converting applications. The web guiding system is equipped with a high precision and high dynamic response actuator that can position the web within a 10 micron resolution and a max linear speed of 130 mm/sec.