Tracking system and tracking device

A tracking device communications unit (TD-CU), comprising:

• an acoustic receiver configured to:
• receive mechanical vibration energy (MVE),
• wherein the MVE is received via a first piezoelectric transducer executing on the TD-CU and a second piezoelectric transducer executing on a tracking device instrumentation unit (TD-IU),
• wherein the MVE comprises a form of data generated in the TD-IU;
• convert the MVE into an electrical analog signal (EAS)
• wherein the EAS is transmitted to an acoustic modem of the TD-CU,
• wherein the acoustic modem sends the EAS to a TD-CU processor;
• and
• the TD-CU processor comprises circuitry and is configured to process the EAS to extract the data based on a start of a data frame and an end of the data frame.

A method for managing data, the method comprising:

• obtaining sensor data from a sensor executing on a tracking device instrumentation unit (TD-IU);
• analyzing the sensor data to extract an analysis output;
• making, based on the analysis output, a first determination that the sensor data is high-priority sensor data;
• preparing, based on the first determination, the high-priority sensor data for an urgent transmission to a management infrastructure (MI);
• multicasting the high-priority sensor data to the TD-IU's communications manager and a tracking device communications unit's (TD-CU's) communications manager for the urgent transmission with an accountability receipt request,
• wherein the TD-CU is mounted to an external environment of a container,
• wherein the TD-IU is mounted to an internal environment of the container;
• after multicasting the high-priority sensor data:
• making a second determination that an accountability receipt associated with the request is not received from a second TD-IU of a second container in a disruption tolerant network (DTN) route,
• wherein the DTN route comprises at least the TD-IU as a source point, the second TD-IU, and the MI as a destination point;
• wherein the DTN route operates based on a DTN bundle protocol;
• holding, based on the second determination, low-priority sensor data that needs to be transmitted to the MI as queued until the accountability receipt is received from the second TD-IU.

A method for managing data, the method comprising:

• obtaining sensor data from a sensor executing on a tracking device instrumentation unit (TD-IU);
• analyzing the sensor data to extract an analysis output;
• making, based on the analysis output, a first determination that the sensor data is low-priority sensor data;
• storing, based on the first determination, the low-priority sensor data in TD-IU's storage;
• flagging, in response to the storing, the low-priority sensor data for a transmission to a management infrastructure during a next scheduled transmission cycle;
• and
• transmitting, in response to an occurrence of the next scheduled transmission cycle, the low-priority sensor data to the TD-IU's communications manager and a tracking device communications unit's (TD-CU's) communications manager,
• wherein the TD-CU is mounted to an external environment of a container,
• wherein the TD-IU is mounted to an internal environment of the container.