Patent ID: 7844406

Claim:
A level measurement system, comprising: at least two sensor devices for measuring distances to one or more materials having a surface, each sensor device comprising: a transducer for emitting energy pulses and receiving energy pulses reflected by the surface of the material, a transmitter being operatively coupled to said transducer for exciting the transducer to emit said energy pulses, a receiver being operatively coupled to said transducer for generating an echo profile from the received energy pulses, and a communication interface being operatively coupled to said receiver for transmitting the echo profile to a signal processing device; a central signal processing device, comprising: a controller operating under stored program control, said stored program control including a signal processing module for calculating a distance to the surface of the material based on the echo profile, a first communication interface for receiving the echo profiles from the sensor devices, said first communication interface being operatively coupled to said controller, and a second communication interface being operatively coupled to said controller for transmitting the calculated distances onto a superior communication network; and a communication network coupling the at least two sensor devices to the signal processing device, wherein the central signal processing device evaluates the echo profiles of all sensor devices.