Distributed data acquisition and processing system and method

A data acquisition system, said system comprising:

• a plurality of subnets comprising a plurality of data acquisition nodes;
• a plurality of data acquisition sensors forming each data acquisition node of said plurality of data acquisition nodes wherein said each data acquisition node further comprises:
• a mass memory board dedicated to and integrated with a plurality of data sensors;
• at least one primary board having an intra-node controller module coupled to the plurality of data acquisition sensors and the mass memory board to provide intra-node communication control between at least one of said plurality of data acquisition sensors and said mass memory board, wherein said at least one primary board further comprises a data conversion module to adjust a gain and an offset of data acquired by said data acquisition sensors;
• a subnet controller configured within each subnet of said plurality of subnets to facilitate communications between the mass memory board and other data acquisition nodes to communicate with said other data acquisition nodes via a predetermined communications protocol to facilitate exchange of information between said other nodes to thereby provide a distributed and expandable data acquisition system the subnet controller configurable to drive a user interface, from a remote location, wherein said user interface to display data indicative of information acquired by said plurality of data acquisition nodes, and wherein said at least one primary board further comprises a data conversion to convert data acquired by said plurality of data acquisition nodes;
• and
• a gigabit Ethernet communications module coupled to the subnet controller and the mass memory board of each subnet of said plurality of subnets to facilitate inter-node high speed data communications.

A computer-implemented method of configuring a data acquisition system, said method comprising:

• configuring a plurality of subnets comprising a plurality of data acquisition nodes;
• configuring said plurality of data acquisition nodes, the plurality of data acquisition nodes having a plurality of sensors to communicate with a graphical user interface via a subnet controller configured within each subnet of said plurality of subnets wherein each data acquisition node includes an intra-node communications module to control communications between at least one subnet controller and said plurality of sensors wherein said each of said plurality of data acquisition nodes further comprises a data conversion module to adjust a gain and an offset of sensor data and a dedicated and integrated mass memory module coupled to the intra-node communications controller, to store sensor data;
• configuring the subnet controller to facilitate serving of a remotely located graphical user interface and to facilitate inter-node communication among said plurality of data acquisition nodes;
• and
• configuring the subnet controller to communicate with said plurality of data acquisition nodes via a predetermined communications protocol and permit subnet control and administration of sensor data acquisition and distribution from a node in the plurality of nodes to thereby provide distributed and expandable data acquisition and processing of streaming sensor data available via a distributed data acquisition system;
• and
• a gigabit Ethernet communications module coupled to the subnet controller and the mass storage module to facilitate inter-node high speed communications to a graphical user interlace.