Systems and methods for tagging and acoustically characterizing containers

A system for acoustically characterizing a container configured to hold a fluid, comprising:

• the container, originating from a mold and comprising
• at least one vertical sidewall,
• a container bottom coupled to the at least one vertical sidewall, the container bottom having an interior side, an exterior side, and a thickness, and
• a plurality of features that comprise acoustically readable recesses, grooves, or protrusions on the exterior side of the container bottom, said features encoding information indicating a characteristic of the container;
• an acoustic transducer for transmitting an acoustic signal toward the container bottom and for receiving a plurality of reflections of the transmitted acoustic signal from the plurality of features,
• wherein the plurality of features is configured such that upon receiving the transmitted acoustic signal, a first subset of the plurality of features generates a reflection having a first time of flight (ToF) and a second subset of the plurality of features generates a reflection having a second ToF;
• and
• a controller configured to determine a characteristic of the container based on the reflections, wherein (a) the characteristic identifies a location in the mold from which the container originates or (b) the mold is one of a plurality of molds and the characteristic identifies the mold.