The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 04, 2001
Filed:
Jun. 25, 1998
Larry K. Brown, Marshalltown, IA (US);
Brent H. Larson, Marshalltown, IA (US);
Harry A. Burns, Marshalltown, IA (US);
Fisher Controls International, Inc., Clayton, MO (US);
Abstract
The present invention is directed to a method of and a device for monitoring, from a central location, the current operating conditions (such as values of process parameters) in a process control network having distributed control functions. In one embodiment, the method and device of the present invention use scheduled periodic communications to send signals containing, for example, measured values of process parameters developed by field devices to a centralized viewing device. The viewing device receives the signals and stores at least one value of the process parameters, and maybe more values if necessary to monitor and control the process. To retrieve the stored process parameters for viewing, the viewing device processes messages from human interface devices requesting the stored values of one or more of the stored parameters and then transmits response messages containing the stored values. The human interface device may be the same device as the viewing device, or may be a separate device that communicates with the viewing device using either the same or a different communication protocol as that used by the field devices to communicate with the viewing device. Additionally, the request and response messages may be sent between the devices using unscheduled queued communications.