Patent ID: 8427185

Claim:
A method of inline inspection of moving photovoltaic material for anomalies without either stopping the movement or removing samples of the photovoltaic material, the method comprising the steps of: forming electrical connections to the photovoltaic material, inducing a first localized current in the moving photovoltaic material with a first stripe source, sensing the first localized current at a first time, inducing a second localized current in the moving photovoltaic material with a second stripe source, sensing the second localized current at a second time, where the first stripe source is positioned downstream along the moving photovoltaic material from the second stripe source, and the first stripe source and the second stripe source are oriented at a non-zero angle relative to one another, analyzing properties of the first and second localized currents to detect the electrical anomalies in the moving photovoltaic material, and determining positions of the electrical anomalies in the moving photovoltaic material based at least in part on a time difference between the first time and the second time and a measure of the non zero angle between the first and second stripe sources.