Patent ID: 7715932

Claim:
A method for controlling a safety-critical process, comprising the steps of: providing a control unit for processing safety-critical process data relating to the operational state of a remote safety-critical sensor device and/or a remote safety-critical actuator device, providing at least one I/O unit that is connected to the safety-critical sensor device or to the safety-critical actuator device for monitoring the safety-critical sensor device or monitoring and activating the safety-critical actuator device, respectively, providing a data transmission link for connecting the control unit and the at least one I/O unit, encoding the safety-critical process data using a variable encoding algorithm in order to generate variably encoded safety-critical process data, such that said variably encoded safety-critical process data repeatedly changes even when there is no change in the safety-critical process data, and transmitting the variably encoded safety-critical process data from the I/O unit to the control unit via said data transmission link.