Patent ID: 8866469

Claim:
An electric field monitoring system comprising: a plurality of sensors mountable on a piece of equipment, each sensor comprising a sensing apparatus, a sensor controller and a wireless sensor transceiver, wherein the sensing apparatus is operable to sense a magnitude of an electric field, the controller is linked to the sensing apparatus and is operable to generate a sensor magnitude output signal corresponding to the sensed magnitude, and the sensor transceiver is linked to the sensor controller and is operable to transmit the sensor magnitude output signal; a base station comprising a base controller and a wireless base transceiver, wherein the base transceiver is configured to wirelessly communicate with each of the plurality of sensor transceivers, and the base controller is linked to the base transceiver to receive the plurality of sensor magnitude output signals; and an analysis module to compare the plurality of sensor magnitude output signals to a pre-determined threshold magnitude and to output a command signal when the magnitude of at least one sensor magnitude output signal exceeds the threshold magnitude.