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Abstract

The invention provides an optical fiber producing apparatus having non-contact fiber tension monitoring, comprising: a traveling wave wavelet transformation processor and a time-of-flight fiber tension processor. The traveling wave transformation processor responds to a fiber transverse position processor signal representing information relating to a traveling wave propagating in one direction along a moving fiber and a reflection of the traveling wave propagating back in an opposite direction along the moving fiber, and provides a traveling wave transformation processor signal. The time-of-flight fiber tension processor responds to the traveling wave transformation processor signal, and further responsive to a fiber draw speed signal, and provides a time-of-flight fiber tension processor signal indicative of a fiber tension of the moving fiber using traveling wave time-of-flight analysis. The optical fiber producing apparatus performs non-contact fiber tension monitoring using a physical description of the fiber motion which accurately accounts for the fact that the fiber is moving, particularly at a high rate of speed, which has an influence on the time-of-flight of traveling waves propagating on the fiber. The non-contact fiber tension monitoring is extremely accurate at high fiber speeds.

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First Claim