In prior machinery health monitoring and machine protection systems, unique data acquisition hardware electronics were required for different measurement types, such as Relative Shaft Vibration, Case Vibration, Axial Thrust/Differential Expansion, Case Expansion, Eccentricity, and Tachometer measurements. More recently, hardware circuitry has been developed that can be configured to perform multiple measurement types using common acquisition hardware electronics. However, due to software limitations or programming shortcuts, the software user interface for configuring machinery health monitoring/protection systems and process control systems has continued to present configuration parameters that are not applicable to a specific measurement type. This unnecessarily complicates the process of configuring such systems for specific measurement types.
For example, as shown in FIG. 4, a known configuration user interface for a process control I/O card provides configuration tabs for both analog and digital channels, although the associated I/O module can be only an analog module or a digital module—not both.
In another example depicted in FIG. 5, machinery protection measurement “Keyphasor” configurations are displayed for an Acceleration measurement (and grayed out), although these configuration options do not apply to the selected measurement type. This results in an unnecessarily complicated and crowded configuration display screen.
In yet another current example depicted in FIG. 6, the nX machinery protection measurement configuration parameters are displayed (and grayed out), although the measurement value checkboxes have not been selected. Again, this results in an unnecessarily complicated configuration display screen.
Therefore, what is needed is an intelligent user interface that automatically presents to the user only those configuration options that are needed for specific measurements that are to be made using specific sensor types.