Mechanism
The carriage mechanism runs as a sequence of steps. A first operating unit receives a governed mesh message from an environmental device within that device's signaling volume. The operating unit evaluates the message through its composite admissibility evaluator and, upon admission, stores the message in its carrier buffer with the time-to-live field preserved. The composite admissibility evaluation is the same evaluation the platform applies to any governed mesh message: the originating authority credential is taken into account, together with the trust-slope continuity of the originating device's dynamic-device-hash history.
The operating unit then moves outside the first signaling volume and into a region lacking direct signaling coverage from any environmental device. The message persists in the carrier buffer while the unit traverses the disconnected region. Carriage is governed by a carrier policy defined by governance policy, which specifies which governed mesh messages the unit is authorized to carry, the maximum duration of carriage for each authority level, the maximum carrier-buffer capacity allocated to carriage, and the rebroadcast conditions under which a stored message is re-emitted.
When the operating unit enters a second signaling volume, of a second environmental device, of a second operating unit, or of an ingress point of a centralized aggregator, it re-emits the stored message with carrier-lineage appendment, provided the time-to-live has not elapsed. The carrier-lineage appendment adds the carrying unit's identifier, carriage interval, and authority credential to the hop-history field. The receiving device evaluates the carried message through its composite admissibility evaluator, taking into account the originating authority credential, the dynamic-device-hash trust-slope continuity, the carrier chain of one or more operating units that carried the message, the time-to-live consumed during carriage, and the governance-policy-defined evidential-weight adjustment for carried observations, producing a trust-weighted composite evaluation reflective of both the originating provenance and the carriage provenance. After re-emission, the operating unit retains or discards the stored message in accordance with the carrier policy.
Operating Parameters
Carrier-buffer capacity is a bounded resource governed by the carrier policy. The governance-policy-defined carrier policy specifies the maximum carrier-buffer capacity allocated to carriage, the maximum duration of carriage for each authority level, and the rebroadcast conditions under which a stored message is re-emitted. Carriage policy can be configured per authority level of the carried governed mesh message, so that messages of a first authority level are carried under different carriage parameters than messages of a second authority level.
Carriage duration is bounded by the time-to-live field of the carried message and by the carrier policy. A time-to-live enforcement mechanism at each participating operating unit discards stored governed mesh messages whose time-to-live field has elapsed, and a stored message is re-emitted only if the time-to-live has not elapsed at the second signaling volume.
Each carried governed mesh message retains the originating device's authority credential, the originating dynamic device hash, the originating spatial and temporal references, and the originating lineage field. The carrier-lineage appendment mechanism appends the carrying operating unit's identifier, carriage interval, and authority credential to the hop-history field of each re-emitted message rather than replacing the originating identity. The hop-history field supports trust-weighted evaluation at consuming devices.
The mechanism propagates governed observations across regions of sparse environmental device deployment without requiring fixed-infrastructure relay coverage along the entire path. The operating units themselves function as mobile relay nodes whose spatial trajectories determine the propagation pattern of governed observations, and the mechanism does not assume a connectivity schedule.
Alternative Embodiments
The mechanism admits several embodiments distinguished by operating-unit class, segment composition, and rebroadcast policy. Operating units within the scope of the mechanism include, without limitation, ground vehicles traveling regular or irregular routes through regions of sparse infrastructure coverage, aerial platforms traveling planned-route or opportunistic paths across disconnected infrastructure regions, unmanned aerial systems deployed for the express purpose of mobile carriage, maritime vessels traveling between ports with intermittent coverage, agricultural vehicles traversing fields with in-field sensor deployments, and personal communication devices carried by operators moving between coverage zones. The mechanism does not depend on the operating unit's mobility model; the same carriage chain operates across any operating-unit class whose trajectory produces useful propagation of governed observations.
Segment composition can be multi-hop. A message can traverse a chain of carriers, each carrier admitting the message through its composite admissibility evaluator and re-emitting it to the next, with the hop-history field accumulating carrier-lineage appendments across the chain. The consuming device evaluates the carrier chain as a whole, taking the trust-weighted provenance of the full chain into account. Embodiments that mix mobile and fixed segments, such as a vehicle carrying a message into range of a fixed mesh that then propagates it through infrastructure, operate under the same mechanism with the fixed nodes contributing their own lineage records.
Rebroadcast policy is governance-policy-defined. The carrier policy specifies the rebroadcast conditions under which a stored message is re-emitted, and re-emission is gated by the time-to-live and by the carrier policy rather than by any fixed schedule. These conditions are configured through governance policy rather than through structural change to the mechanism.
Carriage policy is configured per authority level. An operating unit carries governed mesh messages of a first authority level under different carriage parameters than messages of a second authority level, with the carrier policy specifying which messages the unit is authorized to carry. The hop-history field makes each carriage traversal explicit, and the consuming device decides whether to admit under its own composite admissibility evaluation.
Worked Example: Cross-Pasture Agricultural Mesh
Consider an agricultural deployment in which an in-field soil-moisture sensor at the far end of a sectioned pasture publishes governed observations. The pasture has no continuous connectivity to the equipment yard, where the centralized aggregator's ingress point sits. An agricultural vehicle transits the pasture on a route that brings it within the sensor's signaling volume at one end and the yard's ingress point at the other. Under the mechanism, the vehicle receives the governed observations during its sensor-side pass, evaluates them through its composite admissibility evaluator, and, upon admission, stores them in its carrier buffer with the time-to-live field preserved. It carries the stored messages while it traverses the disconnected region and re-emits them with carrier-lineage appendment during its yard-side pass, provided the time-to-live has not elapsed. The yard's receiving device evaluates each carried message through the same composite admissibility evaluator it applies to directly received observations, taking the originating authority credential, the carrier chain, and the time-to-live consumed during carriage into account. A second agricultural vehicle on a complementary route provides additional carriage on a different schedule, and the carrier chain of both units is reflected in the trust-weighted composite evaluation at the receiver.
If a carried message's time-to-live elapses while it is held in the carrier buffer, the time-to-live enforcement mechanism discards it rather than re-emitting a stale observation. The same mechanism applies, with the same carriage chain, when the operating unit is a maritime vessel carrying environmental telemetry between ports with intermittent coverage, an unmanned aerial system deployed for the express purpose of mobile carriage, or a personal communication device carried by an operator moving between coverage zones.
Composition with the Spatial-Mesh Stack
Mobile store-and-forward composes with the other spatial-mesh mechanisms disclosed in Provisional 64/049,409. It composes with governed observation authorship: a device's governed observation retains its authority credential, dynamic device hash, and spatial and temporal references at the source and is carried unmodified to the receiver regardless of how many mobile carriers participated. It composes with governance-policy distribution: a governance-policy update emitted at an ingress point can be carried by an operating unit into a region lacking continuous connectivity. It composes with composite admissibility evaluation: the consuming device evaluates a carried message through the same composite admissibility evaluator, taking the carrier chain and the carried-observation evidential-weight adjustment into account on the same hop-history records the mechanism produces.
The mechanism composes into the consuming application without modification. A device that consumes a carried governed observation does not need to know whether the observation arrived directly, through mobile carriage, or through a mixture of the two; the composite admissibility evaluation is uniform. Consumption depends on the originating authority credential and the time-to-live, both of which are preserved across carriage.
Prior-Art Distinction
The mechanism is structurally distinguished from prior delay-tolerant networking mechanisms and prior store-and-forward message-passing mechanisms. Those mechanisms provide best-effort delivery and do not preserve a governance chain across intermediate carriers. The mechanism disclosed here is governance-chain-preserving at every intermediate step: each carried governed mesh message retains the originating device's authority credential, dynamic device hash, and spatial and temporal references, and the carrying unit's identity is appended to the hop-history field rather than replacing the originating identity.
The mechanism produces a per-hop trust-weighted provenance record rather than simple best-effort forwarding. The carrier-lineage appendment records the carrying unit's identifier, carriage interval, and authority credential, and the consuming device's composite admissibility evaluation reflects both the originating provenance and the carriage provenance.
The mechanism integrates with the composite admissibility evaluator of consuming devices rather than treating forwarding as an out-of-band concern. The hop-history field is part of the message itself and is admissibility-relevant, and a carried message is evaluated under the same composite admissibility evaluator that the consuming device applies to directly received governed mesh messages.
Disclosure Scope
This article describes the mobile store-and-forward carriage mechanism disclosed in U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/049,409. The mechanism covers operating-unit classes operating across regions lacking continuous connectivity between environmental devices, including ground vehicles traveling regular or irregular routes through regions of sparse infrastructure coverage, aerial platforms traveling planned-route or opportunistic paths, unmanned aerial systems deployed for the express purpose of mobile carriage, maritime vessels traveling between ports with intermittent coverage, agricultural vehicles traversing fields with in-field sensor deployments, and personal communication devices carried by operators moving between coverage zones.
The disclosure includes the carrier buffer, the governance-policy-defined carrier policy, the time-to-live enforcement mechanism, the carrier-lineage appendment to the hop-history field, the multi-hop segment composition, the per-authority-level carriage policy, and the composition with the broader spatial-mesh mechanisms. The mechanism is specified at a level of abstraction that does not depend on a particular signaling modality or routing policy, provided the governance chain is preserved across carriage. Claims are defined by the application as filed.
