Particle counter with advanced features

• US 9,677,990 B2
• Filed: 04/30/2015
• Issued: 06/13/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Particles Plus, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Particles Plus, Inc.
• Inventors: Hodel, Michael, Giandomenico, Adam, Pariseau, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Gray, Sunghee Y
• Application Number:
  US14/701,485
• Publication Number:
  US 20150316463A1
• Time in Patent Office: 775 Days
• Field of Search: 356337, 356336, 356 39, 356438, 702 21, 702 19, 702 66, 324 714
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 15/1429 Signal processing
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 15/1459 the analysis being performed on a sample stream
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2015/1486 Counting the particles

Abstract

An airborne or liquid particle sensor with a number of advanced features is disclosed. The sensor includes an output channel generating an electrical signal for a particle passing through the sensor, where the electrical signal includes information related to the pulse. The information is processed by the sensor to determine a value that indicates a more accurate particle mass for a sample period than the average mass.

Claims

1. A particle counting system comprising:

at least one particle sensor including at least one output channel generating an electrical signal for a particle passing through the sensor,

where the electrical signal for the output channel includes at least a peak pulse height,

where the peak pulse height is converted to a digital value based on previous calibration values to infer relative particulate size for the peak pulse height,

where a plurality of peak pulse heights, that include the peak pulse height, are summed for a period of time to determine a summed value,

where a density and at least one of a configurable and a fixed refractive index is applied to the summed value to infer total particle mass for the period, and

where the summed value indicates a total particle mass for the period and is a more accurate particle mass for the period than an average mass calculated by multiplying a particle count by an average size for the output channel.

2. The system in claim 1, wherein the output channel generates an electrical signal representing a pulse width of the particle pulses, where both the peak pulse height and the pulse width are multiplied to provide an estimate of an area of scattered light, and where the area is used in the total particle mass sum.

3. The system in claim 2, where the area is calculated by fitting a characteristic curve for pulses from the peak pulse height and the pulse width to yield a more accurate area of scattered light.

4. The system in claim 1 further comprising:

a battery; and

a controller in communication with the battery and the at least one particle sensor, the controller manages power by monitoring at least one of;

AC power, voltage levels, the battery'"'"'s charging and the battery'"'"'s discharging.

5. The system in claim 4 further comprising a display in communication with the controller, where information from the controller can be displayed.