PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16108204
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2018-08
Publication Date: 2019-01
Patent Classification: ["700", "248000"]

Abstract:
A system and method is disclosed for configuring a group of mobile field devices using a configuration device (an HMI) is provided. In particular, the HMI is programmed to configure identically programmed field devices that are arbitrarily arranged in an application-dependent formation by defining and providing configuration parameters to the devices via wired and/or wireless communication. In particular, the HMI assigns a unique identifier to respective robots as a function of the position of the robot within the formation or the layout of the environment. Accordingly each robot can be efficiently configured by the HMI to operate independently yet as a coordinated member of the group and without requiring the robots to be placed in specific positions during the initial deployment. This obviates the need for constant independent control commands for each robot by a central controller or providing a customized control program to each robot during deployment.

Claim (Index 13):
A method for configuring a plurality of mobile field devices to perform non-identical operations in a coordinated manner according to a control program, comprising:\n arranging, in an operational environment, a plurality of field devices to occupy respective starting positions in an application-dependent formation, wherein the field devices are programmed with the same control program and are arranged without regard to which particular field device occupies which starting position in the formation, and wherein the control program on each field device is configured to use a field-assigned respective device identifier (ID) to coordinate non-identical operation by a respective field device and coordinate application-dependent, formation-based operations by the plurality of field devices; configuring each of the plurality of field devices, each field device including a non-transitory computer readable memory storing the control program, a wireless transceiver and a processor that is configured by executing the control program, wherein, for each of the plurality of field devices, configuring comprises:\n positioning a human-machine interface (HMI) and a particular field device in proximity, wherein the HMI is a portable computing device including a computer-readable storage medium having executable instructions stored therein, one or more position sensors, a wireless transceiver and a processor that is configured by executing the instructions, \n establishing, by the HMI using the transceiver, wireless communication between the HMI and the particular field device, \n determining, by the HMI, the respective starting position occupied by the particular field device in the formation, wherein the respective starting position is a relative position within the formation, \n automatically defining, by the HMI, configuration settings for the particular field device including at least a respective device identifier (ID), wherein the device IDs are defined incrementally and as a function of the respective starting position within the formation, and \n transferring, by the HMI using the wireless transceiver, the configuration settings to the particular robot to configure the particular robot; and \n initiating coordinated operation of the plurality of field devices according to the control program and the respective configuration settings.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 29.0
- Percentile: 96.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.74444
- Patent Class: 700.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['15240530', '14370383', '15124426', '15320310', '10392747']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.351363212768912
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5438250406387082
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.3706093955558917
- Mean Citation Score: 190.039916
- Max Citation Score: 408.82492
- Similarity Product: 360.517505683992

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 0
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 0
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test