Patent 7424378 was granted and assigned to Siemens Aktiengesellschaft on September, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention relates to a method and a device for communication with a plant, in particular, for the operation and monitoring of an automated plant in industrial manufacture. The state of charge of the battery, in a battery-operated communication device, for exchange of data with the plant, is recorded. The predicted remaining operation time of the communication device is determined from the state of charge and, depending on the state of charge, measures are taken in the plant, or in the communication device.