Patent ID: 8032078

Claim:
A system for monitoring a set of wayside systems comprising: a set of monitoring devices for generating a plurality of signals representing the current states of the wayside systems; an interface device comprising: a plurality of inputs coupled to the monitoring devices for receiving the signals representing the states of the wayside systems; and a plurality of parallel data processing paths for independently processing the signals received at the plurality of inputs and independently generating messages for communicating the current states of the wayside systems, comprising: a first interface processor for receiving the signals and generating a first set of messages each including a first set of status bits representing the states of the wayside systems and an error detection code; and a second interface processor for receiving the signals and generating a second set of messages each including a second set of status bits representing the states of the wayside systems and an error detection code; and a radio for communicating with a locomotive and including at least one radio processor for executing a plurality of radio processes, each radio process operating on the messages from a corresponding one of the first and second processors of the data processing paths with a different algorithm and independently calculating from the status bits sets of aspect bits representing a current overall aspect of the wayside systems for use in generating a message including aspect information and authentication information for radio transmission to the locomotive.