Patent ID: 7529644

Claim:
A method of diagnosing a distributed operational system, said operational system including a field device, a field processing module coupled to the field device, a bitbus, a fieldbus, and an auxiliary processing module communicating with the bitbus and the fieldbus, the method comprising: generating a field operating characteristic at the field device; processing the field operating characteristic at the field processing module; generating field operating data including a field diagnostic parameter as a function of the field operating characteristic; communicating the field operating data including the field diagnostic parameter over the bitbus from the field processing module to the auxiliary processing module; generating at the auxiliary processing module auxiliary field data as a function of the received field operating data; and communicating the auxiliary field data over the fieldbus; and wherein communicating field operating data over the bitbus is communicating in a format that is less than or equal to 8 bits and wherein communicating the auxiliary field data over the fieldbus is communicating in a format greater than 8 bits.