Patent ID: 7886766

Claim:
A network system for monitoring ball valves within an industrial facility, which comprises: a. a plurality of add-on valve monitoring devices—VMDs, each VMD is affixed externally to an existing ball valve, and comprises: a sensor for sensing the angular position of the ball valve; short range wireless communication unit for transmitting at least immediately upon sensing any change in said ball valve angular position a status message which includes the new angular position of the ball valve as sensed by said sensor and an identification of said VMD; and mechanism for affixing the add-on VMD to the monitored ball valve in a manner which does not disturb the normal operation of the ball valve; and b. one or more Valve Device Readers—VDRs located a short range from one or more of said VMDs for receiving said status messages, and for forwarding the same to a server by Ethernet communication.