FY2018 NOAA SBIR Phase I Solicitation

Summary: The reproductive life history of fish, including when and where they spawn (=release of eggs from ovary), has been critical to the proper management of a fish species in the commercial fishery. To increase catch, commercial fishermen have historically focused on aggregations of fish at the time of spawning and, in response; management agencies have used this information to assign fishing limits in an effort to sustain populations. An important tool for the management of fish is the analysis of population structure using genetic markers. Results of the analyses of genetic population structure have critical impacts on the management of a species since they may mean the difference between managing a species as a single entity or as separate populations across their range. Genetic population analyses based on samples taken from the wild rely on the supposition that fish from discrete reproductive populations are known and being assessed separately. Yet, for many species of fish this assumption is clearly violated since their spawning sites are unknown and DNA samples for genetic analysis are taken without this information (e.g., sablefish - Jasonowicz et al., 2017). 54 For a few species, the timing and location of spawning is known. However, for many marine fish, particularly deep-water species, it is not. This includes some of the most commercially important species such as sablefish and Pacific hake. Even for species such as halibut where some reproductive information is available, our knowledge is incomplete. For species such as Pacific hake, spawning information is essential for their management since changing climateocean conditions are altering seasonal migratory behaviors (Benson et al., 2002; Ressler et al., 2007). These changes have been hypothesized to have altered the timing and locations of spawning and how this impacts the assessment of population size for this species is unclear. While there has been significant development of tagging technologies (e.g., archival and acoustic tags) to follow the general movements of fish and to discern their habitat (e.g. depth and temperature) preferences, there has been relatively little effort to develop technologies that could determine when and where a fish spawns. There has been some research using radio transmitters or acoustic telemetry tags that are inserted into the ovary (via the oviduct) with the hypothesis that when spawning and egg release occurs, the tag is expelled from the ovary and can be detected by a receiver in the environment. If one could locate the tag then the location (but not timing) of spawning can be inferred. In these studies, the general tag locations were made by manually searching shoreline areas with receivers to detect signals (Pierce et al., 2007; Skovrind et al., 2013), or an existing acoustic telemetry array was employed (Binder et al., 2014). However, in all of these cases, some a priori knowledge of where the spawning locations were located was necessary to either search for the tags or to determine where to locate the telemetry arrays. This approach may have some probability of success in a very limited space such as a freshwater lake or shoreline, but would be impossible in a large open body of water such as the ocean. In addition, these methods do not define the timing of spawning. Clearly, when dealing with species in the ocean that have wide distribution, radio transmitters or acoustic telemetry cannot be used for this purpose. Further, this would be even more difficult for fish species that reside in deep water that would be inaccessible to manual searching with receivers or for telemetry array deployment. The Problem: A technology is needed that can determine the precise timing of spawning (=release of eggs from the ovary) and to link that event to the simultaneous determination of the geographic location of that spawning event. We hypothesize that, depending on how this problem is addressed other uses for this technology could be envisioned such as the archiving of other types of data from the fish (see project goals).

Project Goals: To solve this problem, a successful technology would be one in which the release of eggs from the female could be determined, the timing of that release recorded, and that information could subsequently be obtained by a researcher. In addition, the technology would have to also determine the geographic location at which the release of the eggs occurred. The release of eggs from the ovary (signaling spawning) might be directly monitored or, indirectly monitored through the simultaneous release of something that could be placed in the ovary and be used as a proxy for egg release. The egg proxy could then be used as a signal itself or as a trigger that could then initiate other processes such as the release of a tag (e.g., satellite popup tag) 55 that is attached to the fish. That tag could then be used to transmit or contain the information on the time and location of egg release. From past studies, we know that proxies such as miniature radio transmitters or acoustic tags can be expelled from the ovary at the time of spawning. It is then a matter of how to link these proxies with other technologies that would record that information and relay it to the researcher. In developing this technology, no a priori knowledge of where and when the spawning will take place can be assumed and it is unlikely that the fish itself will ever be recovered. Rather, the information on when and where spawning occurs has to be transferred independently to the researcher from where it is collected and could, therefore, involve some form of satellite transmission. While the technology in this subtopic proposal is being directed at solving the issue of where and when fish spawning takes place, it could also be used for other purposes depending on how the problem is solved. The general concept of detecting and archiving what is occurring in a fish over some period of time and then eventually relaying that information to an individual (researcher or other), could have significant applications in physiology (detecting and recording various internal parameters such as blood pressure), behavior (sensing the movements of predators or other neighboring fish such as those in a school), or surveillance (detecting the presence or movements of other objects such as marine mammals or ships). The use would depend on what precisely is placed into the fish and what that device could record.

Summary: The last several years have seen an explosion in the manufacture and use of low-cost sensors for the measurement of air pollutants. Such sensors offer the promise of distributed measurements of atmospheric pollutants over wide geographical areas, and as such have important potential applications for source attribution, local air quality, and human health/exposure. However, it is critical that the performance (accuracy, precision, selectivity) of these sensors be well characterized, and continually monitored during measurement periods. In particular, as with all air quality instrumentation, sensors need to be regularly calibrated, which represents a major challenge for large-scale networks (with hundreds or even thousands of sensor nodes). General approaches include laboratory-based calibrations (exposing sensors to known levels of pollutants under controlled, well-defined conditions) and co-location calibrations (placing sensors near high-fidelity regulatory-grade monitors). However, neither approach has been demonstrated as effective on a large scale.

Project Goals: Development of novel approaches for the evaluation and calibration of low-cost sensors during and after deployment. NOAA is presently developing an air quality forecasting capability which would greatly benefit from an expanded base of observations. The development of novel approaches for the evaluation and calibration of low-cost sensors during and after deployment is critical to the implementation of a cost effective air quality observing network. Such approaches could be physical systems, such as portable calibration setups or calibration modules internal to the sensor nodes, or be methodology-based, such as new algorithms or descriptions of “best practices” for calibration. The approaches developed must be suited for large-scale use, be applicable to in-use sensors, and provide a means by which sensor performance (accuracy, precision, etc.) can be described quantitatively. Calibration approaches could be focused on a particular sensor or class of sensors (e.g., measurements of a single gas-phase pollutant, or of the number or mass concentration of particulate matter), or be broadly applicable to low-cost sensors generally

Summary: Phytoplankton form the foundation of most aquatic ecosystems and therefore quantitative information about their species composition is critical for many fields of research and applications. For example, in coastal and inland waters, species-specific cell counts data can be useful for eutrophication assessment and detection of harmful algal blooms. Satellite water color remote sensing can potentially be a powerful tool for rapidly and cost-effectively retrieving information associated with phytoplankton composition, provided that large amount of field data obtained in diverse natural waters are available to develop this tool. Extant techniques to measure phytoplankton cell counts are inadequate to satisfy this need. The classical method requires a phytoplankton taxonomist, or a non-professional aided by books, to look through a microscope, recognize, and count manually. The process is tedious and time-consuming, and lacks consistency because it depends on who is counting. Some instruments use an alternative approach that replaces the microscope with an imaging instrument, but still require manual species identification. Some achieved automatic identification and quantification of phytoplankton cells down to individual species. However, they lack portability, speediness of data acquisition, and accuracy of species identification.

Project Goals: The objective of this subtopic is to develop a portable, fast, and intelligent instrument that can be used to automatically and accurately measure the cell number concentration of each individual phytoplankton species present in a given natural water sample. This is a challenging task considering that 1) in natural waters phytoplankton cells are mixed with non-living particles of similar size and abundance; 2) different phytoplankton species can vary greatly in size and morphology; and 3) phytoplankton cells can form chains or arbitrarily shaped colonies. We envision that the new instrument capable of addressing these challenges would require two essential components, image acquisition and artificial taxonomist. The image acquisition component is used to capture and record information about individual cells such as size, color, morphology, excitation-emission spectra, and etc., basically any information that can be used to extract unique traits to characterize a species. This component must have a sufficiently large throughput to provide statistically representative cell counts for at least dominant species in the sample. The artificial taxonomist component is used to replace the human taxonomist to identify the taxon of each unknown cell based on the information captured by the image acquisition component. Advanced image processing algorithms play a key role in this component. Expectations for Phase I include a detailed proof-of-concept report describing research results and technology development completed for the instrument, and a description of where the principal investigator expects the project to be at the end of Phase II, including a description of how this instrument will be commercialized.

Summary: NOAA’s diverse responsibilities include exploration, scientific studies for biogeochemical sensing, mapping, and other activities of the coastal and oceanic benthos. Two ongoing endeavors related to the benthos are optical measurements of the bottom albedo and ecosystems mapping within the euphotic zone, in particular coral reef mapping, with coincident spectral and coral health measurements. Technology exists for determination of optical properties of the ocean bottom, albeit in a time consuming, labor intensive method. Additionally technology exists in vehicle design, mapping and non-destructive, determination of coral health. These topics are also performed by separate manual, expensive, labor-intensive methods. These two endeavors can be further developed and integrated as multiple subsystems into a utilitarian, efficient, cost effective, innovative commercial system capable of many mission applications in addition to optical measurements and coral reef mapping with health assessments. These two related efforts are in line with NOAA’s Strategic Research Guidance Memorandum, “…development of novel sensing elements and platforms, with the end goal being to increase efficiency and reliability, improve data return, and reduce costs.” This concept of a multipurpose vehicle that feeds benthic data to the surface for further dissemination and analysis is referred to as NOAA’s Bottom Feeder.

Project Goals: Overall the Bottom Feeder is conceptualized as an AUV with alternate tethered capability for feeding bottom data to the surface. The submerged vehicle will be multifunctional, with initial primary functions of 1) provide optical data and 2) map coral reef ecosystems for depth range of zooxanthallate corals to mesophotic depths. The bottom feeder vehicle will need to maintain course and speed, provide position information, maintain a set distance from the bottom, horizontal and vertical operation, have a robust collision avoidance system, be capable of data transmission to the surface (via cable and wireless) and be freely autonomous or when conditions warrant, tethered operations. A dual power source is preferred, one for the vehicle, the other for the payloads. The power sources can be linked for ascending, either for retrieval or emergency situations. Provisions for ascending should be carefully considered, such as buoyancy shifted to the bow for collision avoidance system and controlled rate, with pinger and beacon activated. Rationale for the optical sensor(s) comes from a need of the remote sensing community. NOAA/NESDIS(National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service)/STAR (Center for Satellite applications and Research)/Coral Reef Watch is currently working with operational optical (ocean color) satellite sensor, Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) as well as other optical satellite sensors providing products in coastal waters, including over shallow water coral reefs. Bottom albedos (radiances) are issues that need to be corrected per bottom type. Thus one of our two primary systems on the autonomous vehicle is a device capable of measuring the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (approx. 300-800 nm wavelengths) for current and anticipated future optical satellite mounted sensors. To collect useful optics from the benthos, a sensor(s) is required that measures irradiance (upward looking), measures a standard optical calibration plate, and measures the bottom radiances (downward looking) and transmit those data to the surface. Optical concerns need to be considered such as the sensor(s) subsystem may be configured such as on an extension from 59 the aft of the vehicle to avoid vessel shadow, but streamlined sufficiently to avoid entanglement or striking obstructions. Rationale for the mapping originates from NOAA and several other agencies responsible for the monitoring the extent and health of U.S. coral reef holdings worldwide. The mapping and health assessment of coral reefs requires long-term investment of human resources and expensive survey systems with support subsystems. Recent technology exists in vehicle design, mapping and non-destructive, fast determination of coral health. These technologies can be further developed and integrated into multiple subsystems for a utilitarian, efficient, cost effective, novel commercial multi-purpose vehicle. There are systems available for mapping coral reefs, including stereo color camera systems producing three dimensional and accurate geo-located mosaics. Many of these systems are diver controlled, following preset transects, which can be automated. Additionally high quality spectral imagery provides information that can be used in numerous applications, such as automated classification of the benthos. Imaging spectrometers have been providing data for terrestrial and aquatic applications and have been miniaturized. Mosaics of coral reefs of concern are possible with dual camera systems, providing stereo (3-D) and sharp imagery. In addition to dual cameras for a stereo and mosaic generation, the bottom feeder should have two additional sensor components, an imaging spectrometer and a non-destructive, fast response coral health monitor. The imaging spectrometer provides a spectral image, which can be co-located with the camera images for sharpening as well as augmenting the stereo image information for classifications. The coral health sensor will provide point data, in contrast to an image, intermittently along the transect for coral health and possible stressor exposure within the mapped mosaic. A video camera would provide useful supplemental information, especially during the system development. These two initial functions of the Bottom Feeder will directly provide data to NESDIS, NOS (National Ocean Service), NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) as well as other State and Federal agencies, non-governmental organization (NGO), academic and commercial communities. Rationale for having modular or compartmentalized and power / attachment (compartment) interfaces are to provide for additional sensors both for NOAA as well as to increase the commercialization of the Bottom Feeder. The third function of the bottom feeder is to map deep-water benthic habitats with design for an exchangeable set of sensors, such as sonar systems, etc. Additional examples of sensors are only to be incorporated into a design interface or “hooks” for future applications for the bottom feeder. In addition to sensors, a sampler subsystem for water / sediment/ small materials needs to be designed into the bottom feeder. An example of future additional sensor plans include such aspects as efficient lights for deep ocean optical surveys with mounting or compartmental design. Whereas plans for modular or compartmental replacement of lights with e.g. sonar systems when non-optical surveys are conducted. The bottom feeder, being multi-functional and can operate within a wide range of depths in an autonomous mode or in a tethered mode having two applications (optical determination of the bottom and coral reef 3-D mosaic, spectral and health mapping) with built in capabilities for other future applications will provide NOAA, other agencies, academia, NGOs, and companies 60 a cost effective way to meet mission responsibilities and provide a highly competitive commercial system.

Summary: The hypoxic zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico, a region devoid of life, occurs in an area that was once one of the most fertile fishing grounds in the region. Since the 60s and 70s, nutrient rich water flowing into the Gulf from the vast Mississippi River watershed, has caused an annually recurring hypoxic zone that extends over an area that can approach the size of New Jersey. Hypoxia is generally used to denote waters containing less than 2mg/l of oxygen and which are typically too low to support life, hence the common name of “dead zone” for severe hypoxia areas around the US. The largest dead zone in the US is in the Gulf of Mexico and a major effort to mitigate this dead zone has been undertaken since the early 2000’s by the interagency and multistate Hypoxia Task Force (HTF). Primarily focused on reducing watershed nutrient pollution, NOAA’s responsibilities to the HTF include providing the scientific understanding of the causes 63 of the hypoxic zone and its ecosystem impacts. Over the years, NOAA’s research investment has led to development of quantitative predictive models currently used to establish hypoxia mitigation goals and nutrient reduction targets needed by the States in the Mississippi River watershed to achieve those goals. NOAA’s assessment of HTF progress toward their hypoxia mitigation goal is based on hypoxic zone monitoring, currently very limited in scope despite the national interest in the issue. Adequate monitoring data are a fundamental need for proper calibration and validation of the predictive hypoxia models being used for decision-making. Current hypoxic zone monitoring is limited to one shelfwide survey per year due to limited funding to support the extensive ship surveys and fixed observation systems needed to monitor the area impacted by the dead zone on an annual basis. These issues are further compounded by the large size of the system and logistical constrains with measuring oxygen throughout the water column, especially near the bottom where hypoxia typically occurs. Gliders are widely recognized as an effective and cost-efficient monitoring tool for high spatiotemporal coverage of water quality parameters. They are routinely used for mapping parameters in regions where water column density gradients are low enough to enable adequate buoyancy control. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone, however, is a challenging environment for glider mapping because a large portion of it occurs in relatively shallow, highdensity gradient areas of the shelf or along bottom waters below the halocline. Glider deployments to date have not been able to fully map the dead zone due to the difficulty in controlling buoyancy in these conditions. For gliders to be operationally useful for hypoxia monitoring in the Gulf, there is an urgent need to overcome these multiple challenges in a cost effective manner while also maintaining data coverage and accuracy.

Project Goals: NOAA is seeking autonomous vehicle technologies that can resolve the challenge of mapping the Gulf dead zone effectively and cost-efficiently. The goals are to 1) substantially improve the monitoring capabilities currently implemented for the Gulf hypoxic zone, to 2) provide a costefficient mapping capability that could leverage operational support from interested partners as contribution to the Cooperative Hypoxia Monitoring Program (https://service.ncddc.noaa.gov/rdn/www/media/documents/activities/2016-workshop/HypoxiaProceedings-Paper-2016.pdf), currently in development, and, if successful, to 3) extend this technology to other environments where high density gradients in shallow waters have hampered glider applications to monitoring. Integrated, multiple autonomous vehicle platforms (e.g. gliders and autonomous surface vehicles) working synergistically to cover the full range of sampling environments are also encouraged. Current sampling methodologies rely on a shipbased platform to measure the annual dead zone (https://gulfhypoxia.net/). Proposed AUV technology should provide a similar capability, in both time and space, and be able to sample over the range of salinity, temperature, and depths encountered during the annual summer survey cruise.

Summary: Social scientists have indicated the importance of location-specific threat information for personal threat confirmation when it comes to correct response to NWS warnings. Warning areas tend to be many times larger than the actual area of imminent threat. People tend to ignore warnings without personal threat confirmation due to the very high location-based false alarm rate. The NWS has rather archaic tools for providing threat information…primarily in the form of generic text products. It is difficult to assess the threat specifics as to what, where, and when from these products. This unmet need exists because NWS field offices are restricted from creating such resources. The private sector has primarily created online applications that simply display radar imagery and warning polygons, with very little innovation beyond that. They may display automated or model-defined guidance such as storm track and future radar, but have very little forecaster-based threat guidance that may be more accurate and timely, and the output may be difficult for a non-scientist to understand. The only tool that NWS field offices have for providing location-specific threat information is social media posts, for which the information provided, and access by the public, is generally limited, and as a privately owned entity, could become unavailable to the NWS in the future. The NWS needs an innovative tool that allows forecasters to easily provide real-time threat tracking information to be used by the public to confirm the existence and location of a weather- or water-related hazard. Likewise, a tool that allows a user to create their own alert criteria based on his needs, communicated in a manner a non-scientist can understand, is not presently available. Providing the best threat information possible, in support of the NWS mission of protecting life and property and enhancing the national economy requires an innovative online resource that 72 allows NWS field office staff to track and alert people to a variety of weather- and water-related hazards, and provide this information in a form that non-scientists can understand. Such a resource, that supports the NWS mission, would be of value to all residential and business entities, and thus have considerable commercial value. TV meteorologists across the country, for example, could provide the resource output to their viewers.

Project Goals: The NWS needs a truly innovative resource that provides location-based threat information on the following hazards for which warnings are issued:

- Tornadoes and Severe Thunderstorms

- Floods - Hurricanes and Storm Surge

- Winter Storms

- Extreme Heat and Cold

It could optionally provide a means for NWS staff to provide threat information on other deadly hazards for which warnings are not issued, including:

- Excessive Lightning

- Rip Currents

Innovation can focus on how NWS staff could provide the following to the public through this resource. Some potential examples:

- Accurate hazard tracks and pathcasts (based on an entered motion vector)

- Simple threat indications for hazards that the non-scientist can understand (e.g. green, yellow, red stoplight colors based on threat level).

- Linkage to appropriate threat response information for a given hazard and threat level.

- Incorporation of real-time radar imagery with a feature to indicate user’s location.

The desired online resource would achieve the following goals:

• Have a means for NWS staff to develop hazard tracking displays (e.g. tornado signature track, hail core location/track, etc.) that can be easily accessed and interpreted by the general public as well as specific user groups (e.g. emergency managers, hospitals, etc).

• Have an efficient means of displaying the following hazard threats: winter storm conditions, severe t-storm, tornado, flood, hurricane, excessive lightning, extreme heat/cold, etc), perhaps incorporating a threat level color coding that a non-scientist would understand (e.g. green, yellow, red stoplight colors).

• Have a means for alerting the user based on user-defined criteria (e.g. alert me for baseball or larger hail, excessive lightning, etc) rather than NWS-established criteria or warning type.

• Have a simple means for NWS staff to provide and adjust information through this resource, particularly for rapidly changing situations.

• Be able to incorporate existing useful data sets, such as real-time radar imagery and animations.

• Be able to plot warning areas, as well as allow NWS staff to plot location and track of particular hazards (e.g. tornado).

This project requires considerable innovative thinking. While there are online applications that provide a few of the above goals (e.g. warning alerts, radar displays, etc), there is no known application that accomplishes all of the above goals in a manner that is easy for non-scientists to interpret.

If successfully designed, it aims to be the most powerful threat resource provided by the NWS in meeting its WeatherReady Nation mission to create communities that are more resilient to disasters. It would have considerable commercial value given its potential utility for every person, business entity, government entity, school, etc.

Summary: The U.S. imports more than 80% of the seafood we eat by value, half of which is from aquaculture produced in other nations. Future projections show that there will be a global supply gap, and the U.S. could position itself to help fill the shortfall. Although a small producer, the U.S. is a major player in global aquaculture, supplying a variety of advanced technology, feed, equipment, and investment to other producers around the world. Domestically, the U.S. marine aquaculture industry contributes to the nation’s food security and supports a growing amount of economic activity in coastal communities and at working waterfronts in every coastal state and the Great Lakes. Currently, most production – approximately two-thirds by value – consists of bivalve mollusks such as oysters, clams, and mussels, while salmon and shrimp constitute most of the rest. Rapid advances in research and technology have helped catalyze the expansion of this industry to include a greater diversity of finfish species that can be raised in monoculture or multi-trophic operations (i.e., pens that include seaweed, shellfish, and/or finfish). Though there are many variables that may affect the profitability of a commercial finfish operations, getting easily accessible, costeffective and nutritious feed that has minimal impact on the surrounding environment significantly affects the bottom-line for all producers. While finfish aquaculture operations in the past have relied upon fishmeal or fish processing byproducts as a primary ingredient for the feed, using fish to produce more fish is expensive, wasteful, at times difficult to obtain, and creates other untended impacts to the environment. In recent years, significant scientific advances have been made to create fish feeds that are comprised mostly of plant-based products, with the addition of essential proteins, vitamins and amino acids needed for fish survival and rapid growth. There have also been many advances in making the feeds water soluble, which can help mitigate some of the excess organic waste from accumulating on the seafloor below the cages that may, exacerbate water quality problems in adjacent areas.

Project Goals: The goal is to have a business develop and market a low-cost, highly-nutritious plant-based feed that can be used as feed for a variety of finfish aquaculture operations. The potential 74 market for such cost-effective and environmentally safe fish feeds is huge, ranging from commercial finfish aquaculture operations to fish hatcheries used to augment species recovery in the U.S. and around the world. The project would provide funds and incentive for a business to comprehensively assess the rapidly changing scientific advances related to fish feeds for various species, assess needs from the commercial industry, and develop a commercially viable product that can be used to feed fish, while minimizing impacts to ecosystems or the water quality. If successful, this effort could contribute to establishing the U.S. as a leader in the production of non-fish protein feed for aquaculture products world-wide.

Summary: Coral reefs provide food and livelihood to millions of people and their ecosystem services (e.g. tourism, fishing, coastal protection) are valued at $30B/year globally and $100M/year in the U.S. Preserving the critical socio-economic functions that corals reefs provide necessitates a multi-pronged approach that ranges from actions at the global to local level. Globally we need to dramatically and rapidly abate ocean warming, and locally we need to manage overfishing and pollution, while at the same time repopulating target reefs with resilient, genetically diverse, and reproductively viable populations through active restoration. Active coral 68 restoration has been occurring in the Caribbean basin for 15 years, and due to the dramatic decline in coral reef health and extent, has been growing globally as both a conservation management strategy and a method to promote tourism. Corals for repopulation can originate from existing nurseries where they are fragmented, or millions of naturally produced eggs and sperm can be brought to a lab or nursery and reared. Either way the corals must be grown in land-based or in-water nurseries until they are large enough to “plant” on a reef. While some biological questions remain, the obstacles to achieving restoration at scale are primarily in the realm of increasing efficiency and drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to deploy corals to the reef. We need to scale up from deploying thousands of corals at a time to hundreds of thousands or even millions of corals at a time. The primary method of coral restoration for the past several decades has been fragmenting existing corals (primarily branching corals), growing them to a larger size in in-water nurseries, and then transporting them and “outplanting” them to appropriate reef sites for restoration. This technique has been used for several decades, primarily with Elkhorn and Staghorn coral in the Caribbean. The structures used for in-water nurseries have evolved over the years and vary in cost, ability to withstand currents and hurricanes, minimize biofouling, and other factors. Some methods include small concrete or ceramic tile “plugs” screwed into cinder blocks, and fragments of branching coral tied with fishing line to cinder block and rebar “apartment blocks”, PVC “trees” anchored to the shallow seabed, or “clotheslines”. So far the most optimal designs have involved floating structures that minimize biofouling. However, even the most optimal designs are designed to repopulate small scale restoration projects that are perhaps 100m^2 and the biggest bottleneck of all is the “outplanting” phase. It is estimated that over 150 organizations globally are engaged in coral restoration, with at least that same number showing interest in beginning restoration work. Coral restoration is a growing segment in both the non-profit, for-profit, coastal protection, government mitigation, and tourism development space. The highest cost for performing restoration currently is associated with diver and vessel time. The industry is currently lacking a design for an efficient in-water floating nursery structure that can be coupled with an equally efficient method to collect corals off of the nursery structure and ”outplant” a reef restoration site. The coral nursery structure should accommodate a minimum of 1000 coral fragments of Caribbean Elkhorn coral (~4 cm at deployment to nursery and growing to ~20cm at outplanting). The structure should be deployable by two divers in a single one-tank SCUBA dive (~1 hr). Structure should feature a simple and rapid method for coral attachment / detachment, be stable when exposed to heavy weather, minimize/eliminate biofouling, be reusable for at least five years, and cost less than $250 when deployed at scale. The re-attachment to reef method should be such that 3000 ~20cm Elkhorn corals can be “outplanted” to a reef restoration site and the nursery structure can be re-stocked with ~4cm coral fragment in less than one day. Such new technology that radically decreases diver-coral interaction time, will increase the number of corals that can be deployed per unit time, and would be readily paid for by the many large and small scale organizations using these techniques.

Project Goals: Coral reef restoration is expanding rapidly and globally. There is a broad ecological and socioeconomic need for coral restoration, and there is an untapped market for efficient coral nursery structures that are affordable, easy and quick to set up, and allow for the rapid deployment of grown corals onto the reef. There are many slight variations and modifications but the basic current methodology is:

• A nursery structure is erected underwater in a shallow, easily accessible environment.

• Coral fragments are attached by tying individual coral fragments with fishing line to the in-water nursery structure.

• The structure is cleaned of biofouling organisms during the coral growth period,

• When the coral is ready to be planted it is untied from the structure, placed in a bucket and moved to the reef restoration site.

• At the reef restoration site, the coral is glued onto the reef with underwater epoxy.

The overall project goal is to increase the efficiency of coral restoration by improving the design of both in-water nursery structures and the “outplanting” of corals from the structures to the reef restoration site. The nursery structure should be designed to:

• deploy in ~1 hr by 2 SCUBA divers

• hold 1000 ~4cm Elkhorn coral fragments that can grow to ~20cm each

• attach and detach corals rapidly (such that structures can be restocked and ~3000 ~20cm diameter Elkhorn corals can be planted in one day)

• cost $250/unit, given mass market fabrication, and a 10 unit minimum purchase

Prefabricated, inexpensive, but sturdy structures, with simple attachment/detachment sites, and a method for getting these corals onto the reef rapidly would change this industry entirely. Using snaps or small cement or ceramic tiles that could be wedged onto the reef could increase efficiency by >10 times. If the SBC technology is successful and affordable, communities/localities world-wide that rely on coral reefs as their economic engine through recreation and tourism will pay for this, as will large-scale coral restoration NGOs, and government agencies that engage in mitigation. 8.3.2 SUBTOPIC: Automated Tools for Detectin

Summary: Machine vision and/or artificial intelligence tools to detect and respond to entanglement risks specifically associated with aquaculture operations in coastal or offshore environments (e.g. entanglements of offshore marine aquaculture systems and gear with marine mammals and turtles, or other species of concern). Creation and deployment of a system that can anticipate entanglement events and potentially deter the animal and/or alert aquaculture operators when there is either an increased likelihood of an entanglement, or an actual entanglement event. This could be real time detection/monitoring or a combination of real time detection and 70 modeling. The next step would be to act on the information provided by that tool; systems which could respond (or at least have a pathway to effect a response) to risks with deterrent and mitigation and measures and are preferred.

Project Goals: Risk of entanglements caused by aquaculture installations creates a critical roadblock for many interested parties seeking to obtain aquaculture permits in the US. Currently, the only tools available would be sensors and cameras that might be capable of alerting farm managers to an active crisis, but there is nothing that could help them avoid a crisis before it occurred. Particularly for unmanned farm sites that could exist several miles offshore, early detection of risks could provide deeply valuable protection. Most of the entanglement events that could occur at an aquaculture installation remain unknown to the operators without a human site visit. Animals that become entangled stand very little chance of surviving/escaping, but paying salaries and ensuring the safety for 24 hour staffing to monitor a farm site is prohibitively expensive. If affordable technology could be developed and deployed that could sense animals likely to become entangled and deter them, and/or immediately alert farmers if an entanglement has occurred, they could take a very rapid, specific action in response (as opposed to visiting the site, discovering a problem and having to make a return trip to the site to resolve it). In addition to protecting marine mammals and other species of concern, this type of system could potentially prevent damage to equipment, escape events, and tremendous time and expense to operators incurred while resolving entanglements. Providing farmers with a tool to reliably and affordably avoid and/or cope with animal entanglements will significantly improve success rates of permit applications and allow for increased growth of US aquaculture. Potential buyers of this technology will be aquaculture producers who have a need for farm-side monitoring that can alert them to events that threaten their crops and/or equipment. Research institutions would also purchase these to protect experimental farms and research installations.

Summary In 2017, NOAA received U.S. Patent 9,709,491 for its innovative System and Method for Measuring Aerosol or Trace Species. The instrument based on this patent is known as an Open Path Cavity Ringdown Spectrometer (OPCRDS). NOAA is seeking one or more private sector partners to develop a light-weight, miniature version of the instrument for use on drones, balloon-launched instrument packages, or other useful applications. Closed-path cavity ringdown spectrometers transfer a sample through inlet tubing to the optical cavity where its extinction is measured; however, substantial sample loss may occur in the inlet tubing, which can bias the measurements. For example, with aerosols, coarse particles or humidified particles may be inadequately characterized due to either impaction losses with the inlet tubing or evaporation during transport through the tubing. The purpose of the OPCRDS is to eliminate these artifacts and thereby provide a more accurate means of measuring aerosol extinction under a very broad range of ambient atmospheric conditions. A novel feature of the open-path design is that it overcomes the problem of auto-correlated extinction measurements that can arise with closed-path CRD instruments; this is discussed in section 4.1 of the published report on the OPCRDS. Another novel feature of the OPCRDS is the zeroing mechanism which is described in the patent.

Project Goals: The NOAA Open Path CRDS was developed for the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, CO, in order to support the lab’s aerosol monitoring research activities. The fullsized instrument, which is used for in-situ atmospheric measurements, has been licensed to a U.S. company for commercialization. The miniature version of the instrument is a separate embodiment listed in the patent and has not currently been licensed. Although a prototype of the miniature instrument does exist, interested companies should propose their own design and should be capable of developing the complete instrument based on the proposed end use(s). The goal of the project is to develop a commercially viable instrument that could be used for one or more applications. Companies specializing in scientific instrumentation for the federal, state, and academic markets, both domestic and international, may wish to apply. However, commercially viable applications outside environmental modelling will also be considered. Interested companies should clearly demonstrate plans to attract customers other than NOAA for any product they are seeking to develop. Companies submitting a successful proposal will receive a one-year, no-cost research and development license (see Reference below) which may be renewed under Phase II, should the Phase I activities be deemed successful

You are here

FY2018 NOAA SBIR Phase I Solicitation

Available Funding Topics