Award Data

Our water air soil farms and forests depend on birds as vital natural resources. Birds consumeinsects pollinate plants disperse seeds and maintain wetlands. Unfortunately transmission linecollisions kill 57 million birds annually in the United States. Installing markers that help birdssee and not hit power lines can decrease bird collisions by more than 70%. Today powerlinemen use bucket trucks an ...

RUTE SUNTRACKER (RST) is a new hardware solution that supports PV solar above cattlepasture. RST is a cable-stayed pole-mounted high-clearance solar tracker system. High-clearancesolar saves rangeland saves water and increases farm income especially important for smallranches where income has decreased below sustainable levels due to climate stress. RST addressesUSDA Strategic Goal 1: Combat Clima ...

PROJECTSUMMARY Title: AdvancedGrid-InteractiveLoadEfficiency(AGILE) PD: BarhamTanyaA Institution:CommunityEnergyLabsINC Policiesnationwidearetargetingrapidadoptionofgrid-integratedbuildingstrategiestime-varying electricitypricesbuildingelectrificationandresiliency.Butadvocatesworrythattop-down innovationleavessmallerandmorevulnerablecommunitiesbehind. Thisprojectbringsaffordable gridconnectivityto ...

PROJECT SUMMARYProject SummaryProposed study is in response to the USDA NIFA SBIR Phase II Topic Area 8.8 "Biofuels andBiobased Products." Formology specializes in the innovation manufacture commercializationand sale of specialty wood and natural fiber panels for architecture and design/build markets; andwould like to meet the demands of the architecture and design (A&D) industries forenvironmenta ...

Kultevat Inc. aims to produce natural rubber from Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS) at scale toachieve high quality product at a price point that is attractive to customers in particular to US basedcompanies. To date the economics of growing TKS and extracting rubber from its roots at a pricepoint that is competitive with Hevea rubber has not been demonstrated. During Phase I research anRNAi gene silenci ...

Modern lithium ion batteries are known for their poor safety performance, with many reports of battery failure and fire having been reported. One of the major causes of battery fire is from the use of flammable solvents, such as organic carbonates, as the electrolyte. These hazards have long limited the usage of batteries in dangerous conditions, such as on the battlefield. To combat this issue, t ...

LATERAL.systems: Edge Based Indoor Farming Monitoring PlatformUSDA NIFA Phase II Proposal Project SummaryFood and the future of food production needs help. The mission of LATERAL.systems LLC(LATERAL) is to enable next generation farming by accelerating the intersection of promisingmodern technologies to advance sustainable and ethical production of food. A promisinginnovation for meeting increasin ...

PROJECT SUMMARY Title: Developing Pre-Consumer Waste as Low-Cost Cricket Feed for Small Farming Operations PD: Schlafly Sarah Company: Mighty Cricket      Advisor: Morales Ramos Juan A. Institution: USDA-ARS (unfunded in phase I)    Advisor: Rojas Guadalupe M. Institution: USDA-ARS (unfunded in phase I) The goal of this project to develop a s ...

U.S. Coast Guard personnel monitoring radio transmissions of vessels at sea must be able to identify distress calls despite interference, degraded conditions, and the stressed speech of those in emergency situations. However, not all distress calls are genuine. Hoax calls can be intended as malicious pranks, due to intoxication, or to distract Coast Guard assets from other tasks such as drug inter ...

To enhance U.S. Navy operations, a technology platform will be developed for fabricating environmentally robust, visible through near-infrared (NIR) band transparent, tapered resistivity films. After refining the operational requirements and updating the device design models, a design trade study will be performed using the measured electrical (i.e., conductivity) and optical (i.e., spectral trans ...