US 6,611,724 B1Granted

On line monitor for a control device

AssigneeSquare D Company

InventorsPaul Robert Buda, Larry Alan Dew, Todd Charles Wheaton, Jackie Laverne Winn

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Abstract

An online monitor that can be permanently attached to a device to be monitored continuously monitors a set of analog signals and initiates data capture over a window of time when a user programmable set of conditions is satisfied. The online monitor includes a digital signal processing unit, a modular, interchangeable, analog signal conditioning base unit that can be tailored to the specific requirements of the process to be monitored and a modular, interchangeable, communication interface unit. The interface unit permits the digital signal processing unit to exchange data with external equipment such as network computers via a number of industry standard communication fieldbus protocols. The online monitor provides the capability to define the trigger condition under which data capture is initiated by comparing a user defined signal to a function of the instantaneous value of another signal or constant. Data captured is stored indefinitely in internally battery backed memory and the instant at which data capture is initiated is determined accurately via a time tagging function, so the data can be retrieved at a later time.

Claims26

Dependent claims

A monitoring control device coupled to a system, the monitoring control device comprising:

a Base Unit for receiving a plurality of analog signals from a respective plurality of analog channels and conditioning the received analog signals by a set of predetermined parameters;
a digital signal processor coupled to the Base Unit for receiving the plurality of conditioned analog signals and converting each conditioned analog signal to a respective digital signal, wherein the digital signal processor compares the instantaneous value of each digital signal to a plurality of trigger conditions and initiates a data capture of a subset of data of the analog channels over a time window in response to at least one of the plurality of trigger conditions being satisfied, wherein the identity of the subset corresponds to the identity of the trigger condition;
a non-volatile memory coupled to the digital signal processor for real-time storage of the subset of data captured by the digital signal processor;
a field bus communications adapter coupled to the digital signal processor for providing access to the non-volatile memory wherein the digital signal processor utilizes a command set protocol for providing access to non-volatile memory;
and
a field bus network of external devices coupled to the field bus communications adapter for accessing the subset of data stored in the non-volatile memory wherein the field bus network of external devices further provides parameters for defining the plurality of trigger conditions.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.