Patent Document ID: 20040019461
Application ID: 10419444
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A plant system including a communication system connected between a system processor and a plurality of machines comprising: a plurality of sensors for detecting parameters from the machines and producing parameter signals corresponding to the detected machine parameters; a plurality of local processors for receiving the parameter signals, each local processor being associated with a subset of the machines and a corresponding subset of sensors, each local processor receiving the parameter signals from the subset of sensors with which the local processor is associated; each local processor being programmed with a plurality of inference rules and being programmed to perform a logic operation based on the parameter signals and the plurality of the inference rules to determine fault information for each machine; a system processor; a communication port for connecting the local processors through the communication system to the system processor for transmitting at least the fault information to the system processor from the local processors; and each local processor being programmed for transmitting fault information to the system processor, whereby the system processor may receive fault information for each machine.