Award Data

With infrastructure costs escalating it is becoming essential to monitor the health of concrete structures so that timely maintenance can maximize their useful lives. This SBIR will demonstrate the feasibility of using a passive sensor, embedded within concrete, to measure mositure, temperature, pH and concentrations of chlorides. It will provide critical data for evaluating concrete performance s ...

The objective of this work is to develop a low cost 6 DOF body tracking system to monitor the orientations of an occupants and pedestrians as well as vehicle kinematics in vehicular impact tests. This tracker system can be standalone or part of a subsystem that can communicate with other trackers and external computer via serial, USB and/or Bluetooth interface. The proposed tracker coined Body O ...

Autonomous Innovations Inc. (AII) proposes to develop a novel comprehensive monitoring system for motorcycles that will monitor vehicle miles traveled (VMT), as well as a varity of physical measurements, to understand the exposure and factors in the increased numbers of accidents among motorcycles riders. All has extensive experience in developing and integrating sensors and data-logging for a va ...

Cities must perform detailed assessments of sidewalks and streets, including curb ramps, pedestrian signals, crosswalks, street furniture, and other components to determine compliance with the Public Rights-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines. However, current assessment methods are inadequate or unreasonable due to time and resources required. The objectives of this project are to: 1) develop elect ...

An optical, non-contact roof deformation monitoring system will be designed based on an existing multi-point, non-contact, multi-axis optical sensor-based measurement system that is currently used to measure chest deflection in crash-test dummies. The research involves determining suitable components to be used in the optical path, from high-power LED arrays through lenses and optical sensors. T ...

Calspan Corporation, located in Buffalo, NY is proposing the research and development of the technology and methodolgy that can be used to accurately measure pedestrian exposure. Existing technologies/methodologies will be analyzed, and a technology/methodolgy that focuses on an individual pedestrian's walking history will be specified. Only technologies that are small, lightweight, reliable, an ...

More that 52% of the U.S. highway congestion in urban areas is a direct result of highway incidents. Federal and State transportation authorities are searching for quick, low-cost and efficient highway incident detection and warning systems. Several solutions have been proposed but none could meet the requirements of transportation authorities. Central Signal, funded by federal agencies, has done ...

Although the market clearly has several ride quality meters commercially available, the FRA wishes to investigate the possibility of designing a very compact and ultra portable ride quality meter (UPRQM) for allowing railroad inspectors to assess ride safety and quality on revenue trains as well as track locations responsible for the worst ride. Given the emergence of micro-electro-mechanical sys ...

In 2006, the FRA introduced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to enhance intra-train communications on Tier I passenger cars. This rulemaking would promote the safety of passengers and crew members in passenger train emergencies by enhancing FRA's regulations for passenger train emergency systems. The rulemaking specifically addresses passenger train emergency communication systems, includi ...

Understanding the kinematics of intruding structures (floor plans, doors, roofs, etc.) as well as dummy motions is critical to safety related research. DTS believes the best way to acquire this data is to use small lightweight sensor packages to dynamically track the motion of single points using six degrees-of-freedom measurements. This methodology does not require line of sight to the measured ...