Patent ID: 8639467
Filing Date: 2014-01-28
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A measuring system for determining a value of a physical or chemical, measured variable of a medium, comprising: a base unit, at least one relay unit connected with said base unit; and a sensor unit connected with said relay unit, wherein: said relay unit especially is embodied, to receive from said base unit, and to forward to said sensor unit, data, especially measurement data, operating data, commands or software modules, and/or to receive from said sensor unit and to forward to said base unit, data, especially measurement data, operating data, commands or software modules; said sensor unit comprises a circuit having at least one microcontroller, said sensor unit includes a measuring transducer, which is contactable with the medium, and which outputs an electrical signal dependent on the value of the measured variable; said circuit of said sensor unit includes an A/D converter for producing digital data from the electrical signal of said measuring transducer for processing by said microcontroller of said sensor unit; said measuring transducer is connected fixedly with a first element of a pluggable connector coupling and said circuit of said sensor unit is accommodated in said first element; said relay unit includes a second element of the pluggable connector coupling, and said circuit of said relay unit is accommodated in said second element; between said circuit of said sensor unit and said circuit of said relay unit, data and/or enemy are exchangeable via said pluggable connector coupling, when said first and said second elements of said pluggable connector coupling are connected with one another; the pluggable connector coupling provides galvanic isolation between the sensor unit and the relay unit by transmitting data and/or energy via an inductive or optical coupling between the circuit of the sensor unit and the circuit of the relay unit; said sensor unit comprises at least a first memory region, especially a non volatile, first memory region, in which a firmware of said sensor unit is stored, and a second memory region, especially a non volatile, second memory region, in which an upload software of said sensor unit is stored; said upload software of said sensor unit is embodied, in interaction with said at least one microcontroller, to perform an updating of said firmware of said sensor unit with at least one software module provided from said base unit; said relay unit comprises a circuit having at least one microcontroller and at least a first memory region, especially a non volatile, first memory region, in which a firmware of said relay unit is stored, characterized in that the circuit of said relay unit further comprises a second memory region, especially a non volatile, second memory region, in which an upload software of said relay unit is stored, which is embodied, in interaction with said at least one microcontroller of said relay unit, to perform an updating of the firmware of said relay unit with at least one software module provided from said base unit; and said upload software of said sensor unit, for execution by said microcontroller of said sensor unit, is activatable based on a comparison of a data sequence sent from said base unit with a first password assigned to said sensor unit, especially a first password formed by a first data sequence, and said upload software of said relay unit, for execution by said at least one microcontroller of said relay unit, is activatable based on a comparison of a data sequence sent from said base unit with a second password assigned to said relay unit, especially a second password formed by a second data sequence, especially a second password different from the first password, to selectively execute said upload software of said sensor unit or said upload software of said relay unit.