Granted Patent B1

US 8,830,124 · App. 13/235,641 · Granted Sep 9, 2014

Abstract

Claims (24)

1. A mobile terminal that enables asset tracking, comprising:

a first position tracking module that collects measurements from a plurality of positioning satellites, said collected measurements being obtained for forwarding by said mobile terminal to a remote operations center for determination of a position of said mobile terminal;

a second position tracking module that determines a position of said mobile terminal locally at said mobile terminal; and

a controller that controls an activation of said second position tracking module based on an analysis of power availability or consumption by said mobile terminal.

2. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , wherein said first position tracking module forwards collected GPS code phase measurements to the remote operations center.

3. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , wherein said second position tracking module is a GPS engine.

4. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , wherein said power availability is an existence of an external power source to said mobile terminal.

5. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , wherein said power availability is a battery power level.

6. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , wherein said power availability is a power consumed in a period of time.

7. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , wherein said power availability is based on an expected time to obtain a GPS position fix.

8. The mobile terminal of claim 2 , further comprising a transmitter for transmission of said collected code phase measurements to said remote operations center via a communication satellite.

9. The mobile terminal of claim 2 , further comprising a transmitter for transmission of said collected code phase measurements to said remote operations center via a terrestrial cellular network.

10. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , further comprising a transmitter for transmission of said collected measurements to said remote operations center via a short range radio network.

11. The mobile terminal of claim 1 , further comprising a transmitter that transmits sensor measurements to said remote operations center.

12. A mobile terminal that enables asset tracking, comprising:

a position tracking module that collects measurements from a plurality of positioning satellites, said collected measurements being used to determine a position of said mobile terminal;

a transmitter designed for transmission of position information based on said position tracking module measurements to an operations center; and

a controller that controls an activation of said transmitter based on an analysis of a geographic cost function, said geographic cost function identifying first geographic areas in which said mobile terminal can transmit at a first interval rate, and second geographic areas in which said mobile terminal can transmit at a second interval rate different from said first interval rate.

13. The mobile terminal of claim 12 , wherein said first interval rate precludes any transmissions.

14. The mobile terminal of claim 12 , wherein an input to said geographic cost function is a geographic location determined using said measurements of said position tracking module.

15. The mobile terminal of claim 12 , wherein said transmitter transmits position information to said operations center via a communication satellite.

16. The mobile terminal of claim 12 , wherein said transmitter transmits position information to said operations center via a terrestrial cellular network.

17. The mobile terminal of claim 12 , wherein said transmitter transmits position information to said operations center via a short range radio network.

18. The mobile terminal of claim 12 , wherein said transmitter also transmits sensor measurement information to said operations center.

Assignments (7)