Patent ID: 7332914

Claim:
A conductor inspection apparatus comprising: a signal supply plate positioned apart from an inspection-target conductor by a given distance and adapted to apply an AC signal to said inspection-target conductor; two plate-shaped sensor plates made of an electrically-conductive material and adapted to detect respective inspection signals from said inspection-target conductor applied with the AC signal from said signal supply plate, said two plate shaped sensor plates being positioned approximately parallel to one another; level measurement means for measuring respective signal levels which are detected from said inspection target conductor by said two sensor plates under the condition that said inspection-target conductor is capacitively coupled with said two sensor plates; and determination means for determining a state of said inspection-target conductor in accordance with a signal level of one of the sensor plates measured by said level measurement means, wherein said determination means is operable to determine a position of said inspection-target conductor relative to a selected one of said sensor plates in accordance with a relative ratio between respective values of the detected signal levels from said sensor plates.