Abstract: The invention relates to a system for determining a potential future failure of an actuated valve controlling fluid flow in a line by causing an angular change between two states of a stem of said valve, which comprises: (a) a sensor for, upon receipt a control command at said actuator, continuously sensing the angular position of the stem, and conveying to a monitoring unit a respective angular variation signal; and (b) a monitoring unit which comprises: (b1) a sampling unit for receiving said angular variation signal, and producing a transition vector which comprises periodical samples from said signal; (b2) a local storage for storing nominal transitional values for said actuator-valve pair; and (b3) a local comparator unit for comparing at least a portion of said transitional vector with the corresponding stored nominal transitional values, and if a difference above one or more predefined threshold values is determined, issuing an alert for a potential failure of said actuator.

Abstract: The invention relates to a network system for monitoring valves in a facility, which comprises: (a) a plurality of valve monitoring devices—VMDs, each monitoring device is affixed to a valve, and comprises: (a.1) a sensor for sensing the status of the valve; (a.2) short range wireless communication unit for transmitting the status as sensed by said sensor, and for transmitting the status as sensed, together with an identification of said device, to one or more Valve Device Readers—VDRs located within said short range; (a.3) mechanism for affixing the device to the monitored valve in a manner which does not disturb the normal operation of the valve; and (a.4) one or more VDRs for receiving the transmission of the valve status and VMD identification from said VMDs, and for forwarding the same to a server by Ethernet communication.

Abstract: The invention relates to a network system for monitoring valves in a facility, which comprises: (a) a plurality of valve monitoring devices—VMDs, each monitoring device is affixed to a valve, and comprises: (a.1) a sensor for sensing the status of the valve; (a.2) short range wireless communication unit for transmitting the status as sensed by said sensor, and for transmitting the status as sensed, together with an identification of said device, to one or more Valve Device Readers—VDRs located within said short range; (a.3) mechanism for affixing the device to the monitored valve in a manner which does not disturb the normal operation of the valve; and (a.4) one or more VDRs for receiving the transmission of the valve status and MD identification from said VMDs, and for forwarding the same to a server by Ethernet communication.