Patent ID: 7440735

Claim:
A method of monitoring a distributed system having a plurality of deployed field devices and at least one computer at a control room, each field device containing a transducer and a wireless transceiver, the method comprising: sensing information with the deployed field devices to produce ungroomed digital transducer data; wirelessly transmitting the ungroomed digital transducer data from each field device to a base station; receiving the transmitted information ungroomed digital transducer data from each field device at the base station; storing the received information ungroomed digital transducer data in a database on a computer network; storing in the database, for each field device, secondary information needed to groom raw data from that field device; running a virtual transmitter application program on a server connected to the computer network, the server being remote from the field devices; receiving at the server a request by a computer at the control room for a measurement value from a selected field device; retrieving to the server from the database stored ungroomed digital transducer data generated by the selected field device and the stored secondary information for the selected field device; programmatically grooming at the server the stored ungroomed digital transducer data with the virtual transmitter application using the stored secondary information to derive the measurement value; and transmitting over the network the measurement value from the server to the computer at the control room that requested the measurement value.