Patent ID: 7764638

Claim:
A monitoring apparatus connected via a communication line to monitored apparatuses and serially receiving notifying information given from each of the monitored apparatuses with time division multiplexing communications, a single timeslot being periodically allocated to each of the monitored apparatuses for every cycle having a fixed time length, the monitoring apparatus comprising: a receiving unit to receive information related to each of the monitored apparatuses via the communication line from each of the monitored apparatuses; a determining unit to determine a timeslot length of the single timeslot having a variable length to be allocated to each of the monitored apparatuses on the basis of the information related to each of the monitored apparatuses as received by the receiving unit; and a notifying unit to notify each of the monitored apparatuses of the timeslot length determined by the determining unit via the communication line, wherein the receiving unit receives the notifying information from each of the monitored apparatuses at the single timeslot based on the timeslot length that is allocated to each of the monitored apparatuses.