Patent ID: 7839270

Claim:
A vehicle monitoring system, comprising: a plurality of transponders connected in series via one or more cables; one or more detectors, wherein each detector corresponds to a particular transponder and is configured to detect conditions in a particular predetermined portion of a vehicle and transmit vehicle data including condition data indicative of the conditions detected by the detector and identification data indicative of an identity of the detector; and a display connected to one of the transponders disposed at a distal end of the plurality of transponders, and the display configured to receive and display the condition data; wherein each transponder is configured to: determine, for each detector from which vehicle data is transmitted, based on the identification data included in the transmitted vehicle data, whether to receive the transmitted vehicle data, receive the vehicle data determined to receive, receive, from a proximal-side transponder, vehicle data including a number of transmissions, modify the vehicle data from the proximal-side transponder by incrementing the number of transmissions, and transmit, to a distal-side transponder or the display, the received vehicle data from the one or more detectors and the modified vehicle data.