Award Data

The long endurance “StratoSonde” lighter-than-air, uncrewed system combines a low-cost, 5day endurance StratoSonde supports up to 10 micro-dropsondes, which when released from the HAB, descend safely through the entire atmospheric column under a ribbon drogue while reporting observations directly back to the HAB. This project will assess the feasibility of integrating a disposable miniature ae ...

There is a clear need to improve weather forecasting accuracy. The greatest contributions to forecast uncertainty is a lack of meteorological observations over remote areas and areas experiencing pronounced convective activity. StratoSolutions’ new high-altitude balloon (HAB) platform with mini-dropsonde is a disruptive new uncrewed meteorological observation data source able to collect data at ...

As the single largest consumer of materials and energy use worldwide, the construction sector remains a prime target for materials reuse reform. (Krausmann et al., 2009; De Ia Rue du Can & Price, 2008). Construction and ongoing operation of the built environment extracts a significant amount of resources -- and on an ongoing basis. According to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), buildings ac ...

Remote areas, particularly over the oceans, represent regions with the least observation coverage and contribute significantly to reducing the potential accuracy of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. In addition to space-based observations, dropsondes are possibly the only viable meteorological sensors for use over remote areas, where there is no cost-effective approach to permit regular r ...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have emerged as a pervasive and persistent threat to drinking water throughout the world. Called ‘forever chemicals” because their high stability leads PFAS to build up in the environment. PFAS accumulates in the blood from exposures and is associated with various cancers and other illnesses. There is an urgent need for a technology that can both remo ...

The presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the environment represents an emerging issue due to their stability, bioaccumulation potential, and risks to human and ecological well-being. There is a critical need to develop sampling methods for PFAS to assess risks and inform remedial investigations and feasibility studies (RI/FS) at locations where historical releases have elevate ...

Nutrient pollution caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the water is a costly and challenging environmental problem with widespread negative health and ecological effects. During Phase I XploSafe successfully confirmed the technical feasibility of using its proprietary low-cost biodegradable sorbents to passively adsorb target nutrient ions (ammonium, nitrate, urea, and phosphate) from prim ...

Nutrient pollution caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the water is a costly and challenging environmental problem with widespread potential for negative health and ecological effects. The proposed solution to this problem is the capture of ammonium, urea, nitrate and phosphate on low-cost biodegradable sorbent pellets that upon saturation, with the nutrients can be employed directly as sl ...

Methane, is the third most prevalent greenhouse gas whose atmosphere concentration is currently over 1.7 ppm. Methane is about 21 times more potent when compared to CO2. Even though its concentration in the atmosphere is more than 200 times lower than carbon dioxide, methane is responsible for 20% of the greenhouse effect. The main natural resources for methane include wetlands, termites and the o ...

The goal of this project is to develop, prototype, and experimentally validate a new Differential Global Navigation Satellite System (DGNSS) capable of providing sub-centimeter positioning accuracy for quasi-static scientific, survey, and structural health monitoring application. The main feature of the proposed DGNSS solution is that it leverages publically available GNSS reference data from exis ...