Handling of operational metrics in resource-limited devices and communication systems

A method, comprising:

• obtaining a plurality of measurements of an operational metric captured by a sensor, wherein the sensor captures the plurality of measurements over time, and wherein the plurality of measurements fall within an overall range for the operational metric;
• aggregating the plurality of measurements into predefined data bins, each data bin corresponding to a different sub-range of the overall range of the operational metric, wherein each measurement is assigned to a respective data bin based on a respective sub-range it corresponds to;
• determining a value representing a count of measurements for each data bin, thereby generating distribution data that represents a distribution of the operational metric over the time;
• encoding the distribution data into a communication message by mapping portions of the distribution data to specific positions within the communication message according to a mapping policy, wherein the mapping policy assigns a different predetermined position in the communication message to the respective distribution data of each data bin, such that the value for each data bin is assigned to a unique position within the communication message;
• and
• transmitting the communication message over a communication protocol, wherein the distribution of the operational metric over the time can be determined based on the communication message and the mapping policy.

A method for processing received operational metrics, the method comprising:

• receiving a communication message from a field device, wherein the communication message corresponds to aggregated distribution data representing a plurality of measurements of an operational metric captured by the field device, the measurements having been aggregated into predefined data bins, each data bin corresponding to a sub-range of an overall range of the operational metric;
• identifying a mapping policy associated with the communication message, wherein the mapping policy defines specific positions within the communication message for respective portions of the distribution data;
• extracting the distribution data and the scalar identifier from the communication message based on the mapping policy, wherein a value of each data bin is obtained from an assigned position within the communication message;
• determining the distribution of the operational metric over time based on the extracted distribution data and the respective sub-ranges of the data bins;
• and
• analyzing the determined distribution to assess operational conditions, predict maintenance requirements, or adjust operational parameters for the field device.