Patent 7628882 was granted and assigned to Ingersoll Machine Tools on December, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An apparatus and invention are provided for accelerating an added tow to match the lay-down speed of other tows exiting a compaction roller of a fiber placement head, by driving the added tow with an add roller operatively coupled to be driven at the same peripheral speed as a feed roller having a peripheral speed matching the peripheral speed of the compaction roller.