Temperature monitoring system

Abstract

A temperature measuring system is described which is activated in response to the occurrence of detecting a temperature greater than a predefined critical temperature which includes a transceiver which receives an incoming electromagnetic wave, a temperature sensing means, e.g. a gas thermometer to measure the temperature of the desired component, and an electromagnetically interrogatable transponder chip capable of selectively transitioning from an inactive state to an active state upon the temperature exceeding the predefined critical temperature. The transponder chip when in the active state, converts the electromagnetic wave to a surface acoustic wave which passes over the transponder chip and upon exiting from the transponder chip is reconverted to an electromagnetic wave which is slightly modified from the incoming electromagnetic wave. The difference between the incoming and outgoing electromagnetic wave being a modulated signal which contains information which has been encoded on the transponder for retransmission by the transceiver. The invention also describes a process for detecting a hot component which utilizes the steps of determining the temperature of a component, e.g. a bearing, comparing the component temperature to a predefined critical temperature, upon detecting that the component temperature has exceeded the critical temperature, then closing the transponder chip circuit thereby allowing an incoming electromagnetic wave by the transponder chip to be received and converted to a surface acoustic wave as it passes the path of the transponder chip receiving information encoded in the chip for subsequent conversion to a modulated electromagnetic wave and retransmitting the modulated electromagnetic wave to a decoder for identification of the overheated component.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.