| CPC H04W 12/06 (2013.01) [G06F 13/4282 (2013.01); H04L 63/101 (2013.01); H04W 4/38 (2018.02); H04W 12/08 (2013.01); G06F 2213/40 (2013.01); H04W 84/18 (2013.01)] | 18 Claims | 

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               1. A method for monitoring point-of-safety stations in a process plant, comprising: 
            disposing a wireless gateway device on a roof top of the process plant above a control room of a distributed control system (DCS) in the process plant; 
                disposing a plurality of wireless field devices on the roof top to form a wireless mesh network; 
                communicatively connecting the wireless gateway device to wired DCS equipment in the control room; 
                communicatively connecting, using at least the wireless mesh network, the wireless gateway device to each of the point-of-safety stations; 
                wirelessly transmitting, via the wireless mesh network, a status signal from each of the point-of-safety stations to the wired DCS equipment; and 
                performing, in response to the wired DCS equipment receiving the status signal, a corrective action to enhance safety of the process plant, and 
                wherein communicatively connecting the wireless gateway device to each of the point-of-safety stations is further using a 2-pair cable to connect a discrete transmitter of the plurality of wireless field devices to a station controller of a corresponding point-of-safety station, and 
                wherein the discrete transmitter is disposed on the roof top above the corresponding point-of-safety station. 
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