Award Data

On average, a pedestrian is killed every 2 hours and injured every 8 minutes in traffic crashes. 73% of these fatalities occur in urban areas. The SmartCross system aims to reduce the risk of vehicle-pedestrian crashes by providing situational awareness to the pedestrian as well as the vehicle approaching a crosswalk. The system makes use of the proliferation of smartphones to provide audio, visua ...

Biomass heating/cooking stoves in developing countries do not efficiently cook food or heat houses, while consuming too much fuel and emitting pollution resulting in respiratory illnesses, premature death, and climate change. Affordable technologies found in 1.) EPA approved heating stoves, 2.) DOE funded cooking stoves, and 3.) TEG (thermoelectric generation) lighting devices, improve heating, co ...

Over 50 million Indian households cook on a bio-mass fire and have unreliable or no electricity but are anxious to purchase an affordable power stove which will provide on-demand power and lighting to their homes. Annually, projected sales of the power stove could save sixteen million trees, reduce cooking fire particulates by 90%, reduce the two million premature deaths caused from indoor air pol ...

Discharge of nutrients (e.g. phosphorus and ammonia) to surface waters can cause eutrophication and the formation of toxic algal blooms, threatening human health and the environment. However, current phosphorus treatment technologies such as chemical precipitation and conventional biological systems can be costly and ineffective to reliably achieve impending effluent regulatory limits of

Industrial Microbes is developing a green fermentation platform to replace carbon-emitting petrochemical production with newer methods that build chemicals out of methane and carbon dioxide.Chemical production is a major source of carbon pollution, responsible for 18% of direct industrialemissions. Our innovation is an engineered microbe that can consume carbon dioxide and methane and produce a ch ...

The project develops a flexible (flex) route bus system, as an alternative to fixed route system plans, to enhance a transit rider’s experience by routing buses in real-time based on rider demand. The architecture leverages existing smart phone, wireless, Internet and GPS technologies but drives innovation through online routing algorithms based on recent theoretical work in optimization and mac ...

Distracted driving could have severe repercussions leading to loss of life, loss of property, and expensive lawsuits. While there can be many reasons for the driver to get distracted, research shows that the probability of accidents from texting/web-surfing while driving is an order of magnitude higher. Although federal law prohibits texting by operators of commercial vehicles and has strict penal ...

Migration of the vehicle fleet from the current, pneumatic-only, automatic air brake (AAB) system to ECP presents a significant challenge due to the systems’ inherent operational incompatibility. This project will investigate the feasibility of devices that can help to ease this transition by allowing ECP equipped cars to operate in a conventionally braked train, as well as devices to permit con ...

This project initially examines the theoretical basis by which low cost “automotive grade” (typically devices with L1 signal tracking only) GPS and GNSS devices can be made to perform with a very rapid start-up and acquisition times and still maintain a high level of sub meter kinematic accuracy when in the presence of various local correctional data such as RTCM. The resources of such a chip ...

Congestion due to a work zone can cause accidents, as the drivers may not be prepared to take sudden actions ahead of a work zone or in some cases may not have enough visibility/time. Transmitting alert messages in advance can enable the driver to take safety precautionary measures so that it is beneficial to both the driver and the work zone personnel. The proposal aims to develop a scalable sol ...