Patent ID: 7311116

Claim:
A gas regulation system, comprising: a manifold; a plurality of control modules in fluid communication with the manifold, wherein each of the control modules comprises an actuatable valve in fluid communication with an associated gas storage device, each of the actuatable valves having a known resistance in an actuated state, and a local control-processing unit in electrical communication with a manifold controller; a resistance-based interlock defined by an electrical series of resistances of each of the actuatable valves, the interlock being active in response to one of the actuatable valves being in an actuated state, thereby defining a threshold resistance comprising the known resistance; a power source in electrical communication with each of the actuatable valves, the power source having a power output insufficient to overcome the threshold resistance, thereby preventing more than one of the actuatable valves from simultaneously having an actuated state; and each gas storage device comprising a unique identifier readable by the manifold controller.