Patent ID: 7519012

Claim:
A distributed industrial process control system comprising: a central control including a computer system having a controller that produces a control signal for a field device and having a user input/output (I/O) for providing an interface between the computer system and a user, and a wireless communication link associated with the computer system for transmitting from and receiving at the computer system, process control information and secondary information different from the process control information; and a distributed network of industrial process control field devices, wherein at least one of the field devices either controls a physical process parameter based on the process control information transmitted from the computer system controller and received by the at least one of the field devices or measures a physical process control parameter to determine a portion of the process control information received by the computer system controller from the at least one of the field devices; and an associated wireless communication link communicatively disposed directly between the at least one of the field devices and the controller, for transmitting the process control information and the secondary information between the at least one of the field devices and the computer system controller to provide wireless communication between the computer system and the at least one of the field devices.