Patent ID: 7102510

Claim:
An asset location tracking system for tracking the position of a mobile asset via a global communication network, the system comprising: an aerial image database accessible via the global communication network; a mobile unit collocated with the mobile asset, the mobile unit comprising: a first wireless receiver for receiving at least an activation signal; a position locating unit for generating position information indicative of the position of the mobile unit; a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) modulator for generating DTMF tones based at least in part on the position information; and a first wireless transmitter for transmitting the DTMF tones; a central processing system in communication with the global communication network, the central processing system comprising: a second wireless transmitter for transmitting at least the activation signal; a second wireless receiver for receiving the DTMF tones transmitted by the first wireless transmitter; and a processor for operating on the DTMF tones to extract the position information and for formatting the position information to be accessible via the global communication network, the central processing system for accessing the aerial image database over the global communication network to generate an aerial image of terrain corresponding to the location of the mobile unit, and for generating a position indicator on the aerial image corresponding to the position of the mobile unit based on the position information; and a customer computer in communication with the global communication network for accessing the aerial image and the position indicator via the global communication network.