In the past ten years, tremendous advancements have been made in the field of advanced sensors for the particle spray plume characterization. However, to this point, there exist very few commercially available technologies allowing for online characterization of the as-deposited coating. It is known for a fact that coating thickness is one of the most important parameter to monitor and control. The current methods to measure thickness are still destructive tests or direct mechanical measurements that translate into significant production time losses. Furthermore, those methods are rather limited in terms of precision. A novel industrial technology has been developed that enables online, real-time and non-contact measurement of the individual spray pass thickness as they are being deposited. Micron-level resolution has been achieved independently from: (a) the nature of the sprayed material (b) the nature of the substrate (c) the surface roughness (4) the thermal expansion of the part. In this paper, the prototype is described. Then, results obtained on typical HVOF and plasma sprayed coatings are presented. Finally, current fields of application and future developments are discussed.