and managed to win orders. At this time, work began on the development of the soware that eventually evolved into RP Monitor. But Yoshida was the only person actually working to develop this soware. e development proceeded without a clear path. Yoshida felt he was groping in the dark. “Back then, I was the only person doing the coding,” he recalls. “e hardest part was how little information about Windows was avail-able. e initial versions of the RP Mon-itor were designed so that communica-tions between the particle counter and a PC were perfor med on a one-to-one basis using the RS-232C protocol. When Windows 3.1 was released in 1993, you only had books to rely on for infor-mation ga t her ing.”Yoshida persevered. Eventually, RP Monitor ver. 1 was released for sale. Kushiyama remembers the reactions of his customers.“Most companies had only just then begun to adopt Windows. Despite that, the RP Monitor was welcomed due to its simplicity and ease of use. I received a ton of feedback, including requests for additional functions, which I passed on to Yoshida.”Since then, a succession of new ver-sions of RP Monitor have been released. e major turning point was version 3, modied to support multi-point moni-toring. Semiconductor manufacturing forced to pursue soware development by trial and error, testing outcomes for each particle counter model. For exam-ple, if measurements had to be made at multiple points within one minute, commands had to be transmitted to each of the particle counters to control the measurements from the RP Monitor during that timeframe. It was here that Yoshida came across a baing phe-nomenon: readouts of data for some points that failed to register.“In this one-to-multiple communi-cation system, I couldn’t get the timing of the measurements to synchronize correctly with the commands. So I had to confer with Rion to reestablish the protocol for the particle counters. is involved tasks like setting the sampling interval for each counter to 0.5 seconds. I also developed an RS-485 converter that was compatible with Rion’s unique specications.” [Yoshida]As an engineer, Yoshida takes pride in directly confronting the diculties that await in the development process. However, he does acknowledge the frustrations of dealing with external factors over which he had no control, such as the stability of the Windows OS and the meager processing power of the PC at that time. Finally, the day came to test his software for multi-point monitoring.“I switched on the pump on the requires rigorous cleanliness control in the cleanrooms where the manufactur-ing equipment is installed. e tedious work required to set up cleanliness measurements by workers frequently entering and leaving the cleanrooms created demand for centralized control of particle counters installed in each room. e customers wanted to use a version of RP Monitor running on a PC to continuously and automatically mo ni tor measurements at each point.e baing phenomenon of skipping over measurement data during multi-point monitoringYoshida tackled the challenge of adding a multi-point monitoring function to the RP Monitor. But, once again, he encountered diculties. A new and unexpected problem arose for multi-point measurement. The RS-485 protocol had been chosen as the com-munication interface between a particle counter and a PC, but this protocol allowed manufacturers to ne-tune the specications of the RS-485 commu-nication, which meant that each manufac turer had their own variant of the specications. And dierent particle counter models had dierent commu-nications specications, including those for the timing of measurements and synchronization controls. Yoshida was AirbornePhotodiodeInlet nozzleScatteredlight-gatheringlens systemOutlet nozzleParticleSemiconductor laser Lighting lens systemSchematic illustration of a light scattering particle sensorLight is irradiated onto a sample ejected from the inlet nozzle. Light scattered by particles passing through is collected by a lens and received by the photodiode, which converts it into electrical signals. The intensity of the electrical signal corresponds to particle size. The number of times the scattered light is detected corresponds to the number of particles.RP Monitor Evo10 K1701Display screenThe latest version, RP Monitor Evo10 K1701, can be used for environmental monitoring. It’s compatible with Windows 10 and performs real-time monit-oring for up to 256 points. The communication interfaces are RS-232C, RS-485, and Ethernet. Data can also be transferred over fieldbus systems such as FLNet or CC-Link.Real-time graph displayParticleLiquid-borneIrradiatedlightFlow cellSamplePhotodiodeSchematic illustration of a light obscuration particle sensorThe light source and photodiode are positioned so that they face each other. The light is converted into electrical signals. A passing particle blocks the light, weakening the light received by the photodiode. The attenuation of the electrical signal corresponds to particle size; the number of times the signal is attenuated corresponds to the number of particles.Measurement point mapping4Kazutoshi KushiyamaSales Director and General Manager of the Measuring Instrument Sales Department, Kyushu Rion. Since joining Kyushu Rion in 1989, he has been involved with the sales of Rion products as a sales representative and in proposing and commercializing products and systems in response to cus-tomer requests. He is currently working on business strategies as the Sales Director of Kyushu Rion.
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