Award Data

The gray whale migration generates many hours of video that must be examined carefully to identify passing whales and get an accurate count of their numbers. Unfortunately, humans lack the necessary attention span. To solve this problem, a detector will be developed that can process hours of video, detecting whale blows while minimizing false positives and negatives. With an accurate record of ...

Over the last decade, it has been noted that offshore wind energy resource development could prove extensively valuable in many areas of our nation’s growth, including continued diversification of our energy supply, more options for cost-competitive electricity in coastal and Great Lakes regions, and economical stimulation through new and lasting infrastructure development. The challenges associ ...

This Phase I proposal determines the feasibility of growing multiple species of macroalgae in commercial marine aquafarm environments. Marine aquaculture is a logical outgrowth of successful wild harvest seaweed businesses over the last several years. Developing a marine aquaculture prototype will foster the science of sea farming. Extending growing seasons for multi-species would provide year ...

The use of unattended floats, platforms, and drones addresses the immense challenge of cost-effectively characterizing the chemistry of the oceans. The proposed program strengthens this capability by demonstrating the feasibility of Laser Fluorescence Enhanced Flame Spectrophotometry (LFEFS) for the simultaneous and high precision measurement of calcium and strontium. These are key elements of the ...

Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) due to consumption of contaminated shellfish is an increasing problem is the coastal waters of the United States, particularly in New England and the Pacific Ocean. The symptoms of PSP include vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath, confusion, and loss of coordination in both marine animals and humans. In severe cases, PSP toxins can cause respiratory failure a ...

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT: The objective of this project is to research the technical feasibility of designing a software tool “Permit Wizard” that will automate the process for aquamarine permit application submittal, review, approval/disapproval and issue (including collection of fees). Aquaculture producers are currently faced with slow, complex, and often confusing permitting processes that must ...

Signature Research, Inc. (SGR) and Michigan Technological University (MTU) propose a Phase I STTR effort to develop a learning algorithm which exploits the spatio-spectral characteristics inherent within IR imagery and motion imagery.Our archive of modelled and labeled data sets will allow our team to thoroughly capture the variable elements that will drive machine learning performance.The overall ...

To address NGA’s requirements, Sonalysts’ team of world-class experts in underwater optical communication proposes development and implementation of the Precision Optical Navigation Transceiver for Undersea Systems (PONTUS). PONTUS will transfer navigation information from an Underwater Navigation Beacon (UNB) to an Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) in an electromagnetic-spectrum-denied (e.g., G ...

Vadum will develop a deep learning-based computer vision technique to automatically and accurately estimate the number of objects in a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image. The technique learns on key features of SAR and optical images while being resilient to a wide range of SAR image resolutions, collection geometries and object poses. The analysis architecture is extensible to images collected ...

Coral transplantation is a primary management option for rehabilitation of degraded reefs. Stabilization (via adhesion, etc.) of transplants on existing reef or artificial substrates notably improves their survival rate. Improved underwater adhesives are needed for expedient and convenient stabilization of coral transplants with improved survival rate. A new hybrid organic-inorganic adhesive is pr ...