Patent ID: 7930136
Filing Date: 2011-04-19
Classification: G05B

Abstract:
1. A system for detecting an abnormal condition in a process, the system comprising: at least one input for receiving sampled values of at least one process variable; and one or more processors adapted to calculate first statistical signatures of sampled values of a process variable over a plurality of sample windows, and second statistical signatures of sampled values of a process variable over corresponding sample windows, the one or more processors further adapted to generate a function modeling the second statistical signatures as a function of the first statistical signatures, the function defined by an array of data points, each point defined by an ordered pair of corresponding first and second signature values; the one or more processors further adapted to calculate a new data point comprising an ordered pair of a new first statistical signature value and a new second statistical signature value calculated from sampled values of one or more process variables received over a new sample window, and to execute one of a learning function or a monitoring function depending on the new first statistical signature value of the new data point, the one or more processors executing the learning function when the first statistical signature value of the new data point is either less than or greater than the first statistical signature values of all the points already in the array, otherwise the one or more processors executing the monitoring function.