Patent ID: 7031778

Claim:
A method of expanding a pre-existing monitoring system, comprising: installing a plurality of sensors; coupling said plurality of sensors with said pre-existing monitoring system; integrating data from said plurality of sensors with data from pre-existing sensors to form integrated data; interpreting said integrated data to form a data interpretation; and generating an indication of a current status for a system being monitored using said data interpretation, wherein said plurality of sensors includes a first array of sensors and a second array of sensors which collectively receive inputs from an environment which said pre-existing monitoring system is monitoring, to respectively produce a first and a second physical stimuli signature of said environment, wherein said interpreting comprises: generating a model of a phenomenon; storing, as a storage module, said model of a phenomenon; applying, as an application module, said model to said integrated data; and generating a descriptor of a state of a phenomenon using said storage and said application modules.