The key challenges to the envisioned Marine Asset Tag Tracking System are: 1) Establishing a reliable communication link to each container when they are stacked together, and 2) Determining the position of each container within the stack. Reliable communication is difficult because of the line of sight obstruction from an external radio to the tag when the containers are stacked at a terminal or on a ship. A robust communication approach is proposed to provide highly reliable communication links to stacked containers. In addition, a maximum likelihood algorithm is proposed to determine the location of the containers within a stack. Experiments are proposed to validate these two innovative concepts. These approaches will be integrated in the overall Marine Asset Tag Tracking System
