Award Data

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims at developing video mining techniques for automatically generating statistics about in-store shopping behavior to help retail enterprises. These statistics can provide valuable insights for supporting critical decisions in store layout design, merchandising, marketing, and customer service. Further, since it is automated, video m ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will study effective models for carrying out assessments employing challenging puzzle-like questions that incorporate distractor analyses in which meaning is assigned to complex responses. Such distractor analyses apply where there is the possibility that the test taker can give alternative correct, partially correct, and incorrect an ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project addresses the manufacturing and testing of an agricultural byproduct (biomass) as a high performance cement (HPC) for highway applications. There are several benefits of using this processed byproduct, such as significantly increasing the compressive strength, reducing heat of hydration to prevent concrete cracking, and enhan ...

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I effort proposes to develop a micro-robotic wetware system (MicRobowet) in the form of an integrated microgripper/sensor array for active biological detection and robotic manipulation of micro-organisms such as bacteria, pathogens, metabolites, viruses, fungi, protozoa, lichens, slime molds, etc. in a wet water environment. In the Phase I effor ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is directed towards the development, fabrication, and testing of miniature high-stability integrated super broadband optical emission sources for field and in-flight calibration of stellar photometers and spectrometers widely used in astronomy research. No calibration sources for field, in-flight or real time broadband star simulation are cur ...

This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to design, test and implement a novel scene-based nonuniformity correction (SBNUC) algorithm for use in microbolometer-based uncooled thermal imagers. The approach relies on exploiting telescopic motion in the scene, in a video sequence, inherent in imagery acquired by a camera that is mounted in the front of an operating vehicle, ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project focuses on the development of a wireless, disposable sensor that can instantaneously evaluate the quality of packaged food such as milk, meat, etc. The sensor, consisting of a planar inductor-capacitor resonance circuit printed on a thin flexible substrate such as plastic or paper, will be attached to the food package with the capacitor facin ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project focuses on the development of a low cost, versatile diagnostic system capable of simultaneously performing a thromboelastograph (TEG) analysis and measuring the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) for the detection of hemophilia, von Willebrand disease, polymyalgia rheumatica, temporal arteritis, various types of cancer, and anemia. The prop ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project could result in a new one-step, environmentally friendly solid-state synthesis of novel hybrid pigments for a wide variety of applications such as the coloring of plastics, paints and coatings, and cement. The properties of the proposed pigments result from a chemical bond between organic dyes and an inorganic clay, imparting advantageous che ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aimes to design and build a digitally-controlled vapor generator that will enable field calibration of vapor trace detectors for explosives. The technology risk-elements concern precisely delivering, under digital control, a dilute explosive mixture to a heated surface, converting it to a vapor and then delivering the vapor plume to a trace ...