Burst spread spectrum radio system and method for asset tracking and data telemetry

A base station that is configured for wireless communication with a plurality of remote mobile devices for use in a wireless asset tracking system, comprising:

• an antenna;
• a receiver in electronic communication with the antenna for receiving wireless signals from the remote mobile devices;
• a processor;
• memory in electronic communication with the processor;
• and
• instructions stored in the memory, the instructions being executable for:
• receiving a wireless signal from a remote mobile device;
• demodulating the wireless signal to obtain first received data and a first received signal;
• decoding the first received data by first de-spreading with a first PN code and second de-spreading with a second PN code to obtain received data;
• adding a timestamp to the received data according to the first received signal timing;
• transmitting the received data with the timestamp to a system for calculating the location of the mobile device.

A system for wireless asset tracking comprising:

• a plurality of devices, wherein each device is configured to transmit its device identification, wherein each device performs two spreading operations with two distinct PN codes, a first PN code and a second PN code, and wherein each device transmits data using a burst direct sequence spread spectrum radio signal;
• at least three base stations, wherein each base station is configured to receive the burst direct sequence spread spectrum radio signal, wherein each base station decodes the signal by first de-spreading with the second PN code and second de-spreading with the first PN code, and wherein each base station is further configured to add a timestamp to each received data packet and to forward pertinent despread, demodulated and decoded data with other information including the timestamp to a system for calculating the location of the devices;
• and
• a system for calculating the location of the devices configured to create location information for each device by calculating the time difference of arrival of received bursts for each base station, and wherein the system for calculating the location of the devices is further configured to store the location and telemetry and to further provide an interface for other systems to access the information and the telemetry data.