All The Claims

1. A method of wireless communication, comprising:
receiving a signal at a receiver;
estimating the received signal via a common receiver unit comprising a channel equalizer and a multi-user detector (MUD).
2. The method of claim 1, in which the MUD is based at least in part on a channel impulse response, scrambling code, and an orthogonal code of the signal.
3. The method of claim 1, in which:
estimating the received signal via the MUD comprises applying a time varying linear filter to a sample of the received signal
estimating the received signal via the channel equalizer comprises applying a time invariant linear filter to the sample of the received signal; and
estimating the received signal comprises concatenating the received signal via a de-spread and descramble unit.
4. The method of claim 1, in which a complexity of the MUD is not affected by a number of active orthogonal codes of the signal.
5. The method of claim 1, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals with a plurality of spreading factors.
6. The method of claim 1, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals in a plurality of modes; at least one of the plurality of modes using an orthogonal code andor scrambling code information; and at least another one of the plurality of modes not using the orthogonal code andor scrambling code information.
7. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:
means for receiving a signal at a receiver;
means for estimating the received signal via a common receiver unit comprising a channel equalizer and a multi-user detector (MUD).
8. The apparatus of claim 7, in which the MUD is based at least in part on a channel impulse response, scrambling code, and an orthogonal code of the signal.
9. The apparatus of claim 7, in which:
the means for estimating the received signal via the MUD comprises means for applying a time varying linear filter to a sample of the received signal
the means for estimating the received signal via the channel equalizer comprises means for applying a time invariant linear filter to the sample of the received signal; and
the means for estimating the received signal comprises means for concatenating the received signal.
10. The apparatus of claim 7, in which a complexity of the MUD is not affected by a number of active orthogonal codes of the signal.
11. The apparatus of claim 7, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals with a plurality of spreading factors.
12. The apparatus of claim 7, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals in a plurality of modes; at least one of the plurality of modes using an orthogonal code andor scrambling code information; and at least another one of the plurality of modes not using the orthogonal code andor scrambling code information.
13. A computer program product for wireless communication in a wireless network, comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium having non-transitory program code recorded thereon, the program code comprising:
program code to receive a signal at a receiver;
program code to estimate the received signal via a common receiver unit comprising a channel equalizer and a multi-user detector (MUD).
14. The computer program product of claim 13, in which the MUD is based at least in part on a channel impulse response, scrambling code, and an orthogonal code of the signal.
15. The computer program product of claim 13, in which the program code to estimate the received signal further comprises:
program code to apply a time varying linear filter to a sample of the received signal when using the MUD;
program code to apply a time invariant linear filter to the sample of the received signal when using the channel estimator; and
program code to concatenate the received signal via a de-spread and descramble unit.
16. The computer program product of claim 13, in which a complexity of the MUD is not affected by a number of active orthogonal codes of the signal.
17. The computer program product of claim 13, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals with a plurality of spreading factors.
18. The computer program product of claim 13, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals in a plurality of modes; at least one of the plurality of modes using an orthogonal code andor scrambling code information; and at least another one of the plurality of modes not using the orthogonal code andor scrambling code information.
19. An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:
a memory; and
at least one processor coupled to the memory, the at least one processor being configured:
to receive a signal at a receiver;
to estimate the received signal via a common receiver unit comprising a channel equalizer and a multi-user detector (MUD).
20. The apparatus of claim 19, in which the MUD is based at least in part on a channel impulse response, scrambling code, and an orthogonal code of the signal.
21. The apparatus of claim 19, the at least one processor is further configured to
to apply a time varying linear filter to a sample of the received signal when using the MUD;
to apply a time invariant linear filter to the sample of the received signal when using the channel estimator; and
to concatenate the received signal via a de-spread and descramble unit.
22. The apparatus of claim 19, in which a complexity of the MUD is not affected by a number of active orthogonal codes of the signal.
23. The apparatus of claim 19, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals with a plurality of spreading factors.
24. The apparatus of claim 19, in which the MUD processes multiple cell signals in a plurality of modes; at least one of the plurality of modes using an orthogonal code andor scrambling code information; and at least another one of the plurality of modes not using the orthogonal code andor scrambling code information.

The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claims which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1. A method of recrystallizing a layer of material comprising the steps:
selecting a substrate with the layer deposited onto the substrate;
advancing the substrate through first zone, S, such that a temperature, TS, is established within at least a portion of the deposited layer wherein Ts is less than the melting point, TMP, of the layer;
advancing the substrate through second zone, I, such that a temperature, TI, is established within at least a portion of the deposited layer wherein TI is greater than TS;
advancing the substrate through third zone, M, such that a temperature, TM, is established within at least a portion of the deposited layer wherein TM is greater than TMP; and
advancing the substrate through fourth zone, R, such that a temperature, TR, is established within at least a portion of the deposited layer wherein TR is below TMP, of the deposited layer and above a predetermined temperature, X*TMP, for at least Y seconds wherein the substrate and layer are advanced through the first through fourth zones sequentially at a rate of about Q mmsec. such that the temperature criteria of each zone is established within at least a portion of the deposited layer while that portion is physically within the respective zone.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein X is between about 0.99 and about 0.60.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein Y is between about 0.1 and about 30 seconds.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the second zone comprises one or more means for heating chosen from a group consisting of a spot of radiation rapidly scanned over the substrate, a linear array of radiation projected onto the substrate, laser, flash lamp, resistance heaters, rf coils, microwave radiation, and infra-red heaters.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the first and third zones comprise one or more means for temperature modulation chosen from a group consisting of a spot of radiation rapidly scanned over the substrate, a linear array of radiation projected onto the substrate, laser, flash lamp, resistance heaters, rf coils, microwave radiation, infra-red heaters and means for cooling comprising refrigeration coils, thermoelectric means, fans, and cooling coils.
6. The method of claim 1 where the deposited layer material is substantially one or more elements chosen from a group consisting of Group II, III, IV, V and VI elements.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the second and third zone length combined are more than 5 mm long in the direction of substrate travel.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the substrate advancing rate, Q, is at least 0.5 mm per second.
9. A solid state device comprising;
a substrate; and
a first layer comprising material recrystallized by the method of claim 1.
10. A solid state device of claim 9 wherein the first layer comprises material recrystallized such that more than 90% of the recrystallized layer has crystal grains of a size greater than 100 microns in any lateral dimension parallel to the substrate surface.
11. A solid state device of claim 9 wherein the first layer comprises material recrystallized such that more than 90% of the recrystallized semiconductor layer has crystal grains of a size greater than 50% of the smallest lateral dimension parallel to the substrate surface.
12. A solid state device of claim 9 wherein the recombination velocity is between about 50 cms and about 500 cmsec.
13. A solid state device of claim 9 operable as a solar cell wherein the recrystallized layer comprises a crystal grain at least 90% of the size of the irradiated area of the solar cell.
14. A solid state device of claim 9 wherein the substrate is chosen from a group consisting of silicon, silicon composite with graphite, glass, ceramic, carbon, and a material coated with SiO2 or SiC.
15. A solid state device of claim 9 further comprising a barrier layer between the substrate and the first layer.

1. A method of automating provisioning of network services for customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network;
updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information; and
delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.
2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the step of generating configuration data includes the step of allocating and reserving an IP address and fully-qualified domain name for each of a plurality of permanent virtual circuits associated with communications among the network and the router.
3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the service request comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, information identifying one or more permanent virtual circuits assigned by the service provider to the customer premises equipment; and access control data.
4. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the step of delivering the configuration data comprises the steps of storing the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the ADSL router using file transfer protocol.
5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the customer premises equipment is an T1 CPE device, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the step of delivering the configuration data comprises the steps of pre-staging the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the T1 CPE device using telnet.
6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of generating configuration data includes the steps of:
allocating and reserving one or more network addresses respectively associated with one or more communication channels between the network and the customer premises equipment by communicating with a dynamic host control protocol (DHCP) server;
allocating and reserving one or more fully qualified domain names respectively associated with one or more communication channels between the network and the customer premises equipment by communicating with a domain name service (DNS) server.
7. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of:
creating and storing updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
generating a request to a proxy element of a network access device to update the provisioning to the customer premises equipment.
8. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of:
creating and storing updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
delivering the updated configuration data to the customer premises equipment;
applying the updated configuration data as a merge to an existing configuration of the customer premises equipment, to result in creating a merged configuration;
saving the merged configuration as a start-up configuration for the customer premises equipment.
9. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of:
retrieving system configuration data from one or more sub-networks that contain the customer premises equipment;
the updating the domain name server includes updating the domain name server with mappings of the network addresses and corresponding fully-qualified domain names.
10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the steps of retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment include the steps of:
extracting a device type and service type from the service request;
searching a template registry table for the template based on the device type and service type;
if a template associated with the device type and service type is not found in the template registry table, selecting and using a default configuration template.
11. A computer-readable medium having stored one or more sequences of instructions for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of:
receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network;
updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.
12. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the generating configuration data includes allocating and reserving an IP address and fully-qualified domain name for each of a plurality of permanent virtual circuits associated with communications among the network and the router.
13. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the service request comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, information identifying one or more permanent virtual circuits assigned by the service provider to the customer premises equipment and access control data.
14. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the delivering the configuration data includes storing the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the ADSL router using file transfer protocol.
15. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the customer premises equipment is an T1 CPE device, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the delivering the configuration data includes pre-staging the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the T1 CPE device using telnet.
16. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the generating configuration data includes:
allocating and reserving one or more network addresses respectively associated with one or more communication channels between the network and the customer premises equipment by communicating with a dynamic host control protocol (DHCP) server;
allocating and reserving one or more fully qualified domain names respectively associated with one or more communication channels between the network and the customer premises equipment by communicating with a domain name service (DNS) server.
17. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, further comprising:
creating and storing updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
generating a request to a proxy element of a network access device to update the provisioning to the customer premises equipment.
18. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, further comprising:
creating and storing updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
delivering the updated configuration data to the customer premises equipment;
applying the updated configuration data as a merge to an existing configuration of the customer premises equipment, to result in creating a merged configuration;
saving the merged configuration as a start-up configuration for the customer premises equipment.
19. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, further comprising:
retrieving system configuration data from one or more sub-networks that contain the customer premises equipment;
the updating the domain name server includes updating the domain name server with mappings of the network addresses and corresponding fully-qualified domain names.
20. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 11, wherein the retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment includes:
extracting a device type and service type from the service request;
searching a template registry table for the template based on the device type and service type;
if a template associated with the device type and service type is not found in the template registry table, selecting and using a default configuration template.
21. An apparatus for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, comprising:
means for receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
means for receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
means for retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
means for allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
means for allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network:
means for updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
means for creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
means for generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
means for delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.
22. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the means for generating configuration data includes means for allocating and reserving an IP address and fully-qualified domain name for each of a plurality of permanent virtual circuits associated with communications among the network and the router.
23. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, wherein the service request comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, information identifying one or more permanent virtual circuits assigned by the service provider to the customer premises equipment and access control data.
24. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the means for delivering the configuration data includes means for storing the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the ADSL router using file transfer protocol.
25. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, wherein the customer premises equipment is an T1 CPE device, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the means for delivering the configuration data includes means for pre-staging the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the T1 CPE device using telnet.
26. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, wherein the means for generating configuration data includes:
means for allocating and reserving one or more network addresses respectively associated with one or more communication channels between the network and the customer premises equipment by communicating with a dynamic host control protocol (DHCP) server;
means for allocating and reserving one or more fully qualified domain names respectively associated with one or more communication channels between the network and the customer premises equipment by communicating with a domain name service (DNS) server.
27. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, further comprising:
means for creating and storing updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
means for generating a request to a proxy element of a network access device to update the provisioning to the customer premises equipment.
28. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, further comprising:
means for creating and storing updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
means for delivering the updated configuration data to the customer premises equipment;
means for applying the updated configuration data as a merge to an existing configuration of the customer premises equipment, to result in creating a merged configuration;
means for saving the merged configuration as a start-up configuration for the customer premises equipment.
29. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, further comprising:
means for retrieving system configuration data from one or more sub-networks that contain the customer premises equipment;
means for updating the domain name server with mappings of the network addresses and corresponding fully-qualified domain names.
30. An apparatus as recited in claim 21, wherein the means for retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment includes:
means for extracting a device type and service type from the service request;
means for searching a template registry table for the template based on the device type and service type;
means for if a template associated with the device type and service type is not found in the template registry table, selecting and using a default configuration template.
31. An apparatus for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, comprising:
a processor;
a network interface communicatively coupled between the processor and the network and configured to communicate data among the processor and the network;
a computer-readable medium having stored one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to carry out the steps of:
receiving a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
retrieving a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment;
allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network;
updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment;
generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
delivering the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.
32. An apparatus for automatically provisioning customer premises equipment of a subscriber in a next generation digital telecommunications network to provide a network service, comprising:
a provisioning engine configured to receive a service request from a network service provider that comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, and a service to be provided by the customer premises equipment;
a configuration template manager communicatively coupled to the provisioning engine and configured to retrieve a configuration template for a configuration appropriate for the customer premises equipment;
means in the provisioning engine for allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment and for generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information;
wherein the means in the provisioning engine for allocating and reserving at least one resource associated with the customer premises equipment and for generating configuration data for the customer premises equipment based on the configuration template and stored system configuration information includes means for:
receiving information indicating that access is provisioned for a subscriber associated with the customer premises equipment and that one or more permanent virtual circuits are established in network elements of the network for facilitating the access;
allocating and reserving network addresses for a voice signaling channel and a bearer channel associated with communications between the customer premises equipment and the network:
updating a domain name service server with information that associates the allocated and reserved network addresses with the customer premises equipment;
creating and storing one or more mappings for the permanent virtual circuits in a switch device that directs network communications to the customer premises equipment; and

a configuration delivery manager communicatively coupled to the provisioning engine and configured to deliver the configuration data over the network to the customer premises equipment to result in provisioning the customer premises equipment to provide the service.
33. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, further comprising a resource manager that is communicatively coupled to the provisioning engine and communicatively coupled to a dynamic host control protocol (DHCP) server and a domain name service (DNS) server, wherein the resource manager is configured to request and receive one or more network addresses from the DHCP server and to request and receive one or more fully-qualified domain names from the DNS server.
34. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, further comprising an inventory manager that is communicatively coupled to the provisioning engine a to an inventory repository that comprises network element inventory information, and wherein the means for generating configuration data includes means for generating the configuration data based on the network element inventory information.
35. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein means for generating configuration data includes means for allocating and reserving an IP address and fully-qualified domain name for each of a plurality of permanent virtual circuits associated with communications among the network and the router.
36. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the service request comprises information uniquely identifying the customer premises equipment to be provisioned, information identifying one or more permanent virtual circuits assigned by the service provider to the customer premises equipment; and access control data.
37. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein means for delivering the configuration data comprises means for storing the configuration data in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivering the configuration data from the file server to the ADSL router using file transfer protocol.
38. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the customer premises equipment is an ADSL router, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the configuration delivery manager is further configured to cause the configuration data to be stored in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivered from the file server to the ADSL router using file transfer protocol.
39. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the customer premises equipment is an T1 CPE device, wherein the network is an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, and wherein the configuration delivery manager is further configured to cause the configuration data to be pre-staged in a file server that is communicatively coupled to the network and delivered from the file server to the T1 CPE device using telnet.
40. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the provisioning engine is further configured to:
create and store updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment; and
generate a request to a proxy element of a network access device to update the provisioning to the customer premises equipment.
41. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the provisioning engine is further configured to:
create and store updated configuration data in response to receiving a request to update provisioning of the customer premises equipment;
deliver the updated configuration data to the customer premises equipment;
apply the updated configuration data as a merge to an existing configuration of the customer premises equipment, to result in creating a merged configuration; and
save the merged configuration as a start-up configuration for the customer premises equipment.
42. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, further comprising means for:
retrieving system configuration data from one or more sub-networks that contain the customer premises equipment;
means for updating the domain name server with mappings of the network addresses and corresponding fully-qualified domain names.
43. An apparatus as recited in claim 32, wherein the configuration template manager is further configured to:
extract a device type and service type from the service request;
search a template registry table for the template based on the device type and service type; and
if a template associated with the device type and service type is not found in the template registry table, selecting and using a default configuration template.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claims which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

1. A process for measuring on a counter roll a pressure profile in a cross-machine direction where a coating is applied to a paper or board web and so as not to form a nip at a line of contact between the paper or board web and the counter roll where the coating is being applied and the pressure profile is being measured, comprising the steps of:
passing a paper or board web over a counter roll having a pressure-sensitive film sensor disposed thereon, the paper or board web forming an overlap angle as it wraps the counter roll;
applying a coating to the web as it passes over the counter roll such that the coating is applied directly to the web within the wrap angle by a coater not forming a nip at a line of contact between the paper or board web, to thereby apply a pressure profile in a cross-machine direction to the counter roll and to the pressure-sensitive film sensor disposed thereon; and
measuring the pressure profile by the pressure-sensitive film sensor along a line of contact where the coating is applied to the web without forming a nip in an overlap range between the web and the counter roll.
2. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web comprises a step selected from the group consisting of applying a laminated film, applying a powder or dry coating material, applying a fluid, applying size.
3. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web comprises applying a liquid dispersion of water or other solvent.
4. The process of claim 3 wherein the coating is applied as a spray including gas and liquid drops.
5. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web comprises engaging a doctor blade with the coated web as it passes over the counter roll.
6. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web further comprises discharging a coating from a jet onto the web ahead of a doctor blade, and wherein a pressure profile is measured where the jet applies coating to the web and along a line of contact where the doctor blade is positioned against the web.
7. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web further comprises discharging a coating from a jet onto the web on the counter roll and wherein following the counter roll a doctor blade engages the coating on the web on a second counter roll spaced from the counter roll and having a pressure-sensitive film sensor, wherein a pressure profile is measured along a line of contact where the doctor blade engages against the web.
8. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web as it passes over the counter roll comprises discharging a coating from a slide curtain coater onto the web as it passes over the counter roll.
9. The process of claim 1 further comprising the step of utilizing the pressure profile measurements to adjust a coating profile on the web.
10. The process of claim 1 wherein the step of applying a coating to the web comprises applying the coating with a blade coater.
11. A coating station in a paper or board machine comprising:
a counter roll engaging a paper or board web along a contact line in an overlap range forming an overlap angle between the counter roll and the web;
a pressure-sensitive film sensor disposed on the counter roll to measure the pressure profile of a web along the contact line; and
a coating apparatus positioned with respect to the counter roll to apply a coating to the web within the overlap angle, as the web passes over the counter roll, the coating apparatus arranged so as not to form a nip at a line of contact between the web and the counter roll where the coating is being applied such that a pressure profile of the web with applied coating can be measured by the pressure-sensitive film sensor on the counter roll.
12. The process of claim 11 wherein the coating apparatus is a blade coater.
13. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the coating apparatus further comprises a doctor blade which is positioned to engage the coating on the web as the web passes over the counter roll and within the overlap angle.
14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the coating apparatus further comprises a coating jet applicator which discharges coating onto the web ahead of the doctor blade and wherein the pressure-sensitive film sensor is configured to determine a pressure profile measured along a line of contact where the doctor blade is positioned against the web.
15. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the coating apparatus further comprises a coating jet applicator discharging coating onto the web, and further comprising a doctor blade which is positioned to engage the coating on the web as the web passes an additional counter roll spaced downstream from the counter roll.
16. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the coating apparatus comprises a slide curtain coater, and further comprising a further pressure sensor positioned on portions of the coating apparatus to measure at least one of a thickness profile, a flow rate profile, a coating color profile, a coating color edge position, and a multi-layer coating width.
17. The apparatus of claim 11 wherein the pressure-sensitive film sensor is selected from the group consisting of an electromechanical film (EMFi) sensor, a force sensing resistor sensor, and a quantum tunneling composite force sensor.
18. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the further pressure-sensitive film sensor is selected from the group consisting of an electromechanical film (EMFi) sensor, a force sensing resistor sensor, and a quantum tunneling composite force sensor.