Award Data

This project supports the ARPA-E Mission Area of “improving management, clean-up and disposal of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel”. A series of tests and demonstrations for deep borehole disposal canisters at the Deep Borehole Demonstration Center in Cameron, Texas - coupled with development of a US supply chain and global tech-to-market partnerships - will mature the canister to Techn ...

"Rising sea levels and king tide flooding in coastal areas across America are saturating onsite wastewater disposal systems (OSDS), resulting in the degradation of coastal ecosystems and 200,000+ illnesses annually. Many States are mandating system upgrades, with 88,000 upgrades required by 2050 in Hawaii alone. Unfortunately, existing upgrade options are unaffordable for 97% of Hawaiian homeowner ...

Oceanit proposes the design, construction, and testing of a hyperspectral imaging equipped Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) for the detection of various coral species and the monitoring of coral health. This system will be the prototype for the sensor part of a robust, COTS-based UAS system to aid the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program. Different coral families and species will be identified ...

The goal of this Phase 1 SBIR is for Orbotic Systems to prove the feasibility of generating in-situ, global, ionospheric­thermospheric neutral density and wind ion data on a near real-time basis. Orbotic Systems is developing an instrument called WIND (Wind Ion Neutral Density). This proposal leverages Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 and 8 hardware and software as the basis to develop a new ge ...

"The impact of wildfires on air quality in the surrounding hundreds of miles has been discussed since the ‘70s. There have been a number of studies investigating the severity of the impact of wildfire smoke on the health of people in affected areas that have shown that hundreds of thousands of people die as a consequence of smoke-tainted air. Many studies focus on the impact of particulate matte ...

Ensuring a safe water supply for society and the sectors that rely on water for economic and environmental purposes is a difficult problem that needs significant investment in R&D across public and private organizations. Climate change accelerates and exacerbates this challenge, causing a breakdown in some traditional approaches that use the past to predict the future streamflow on a seasonal (10 ...

The Ionosphere-Thermosphere-Electrodynamics (I-T-E) Earth system varies markedly on different spatial and temporal scales and this variation can have adverse effects on human operations and systems. There is a need to specify and forecast near-Earth I-T-E space weather to reduce the risks from hazards to systems that operate in this environment. An indicator of the current state and the near-term ...

"Harmful Algal Blooms negatively impact the environment, economy, and health of waterfront communities. The earlier a potential bloom is detected, the more time to plan and execute a response, the smaller the remedial action required, and the less the expense and environmental impact. The proposed submersible camera combines multiple spectral images with artificial intelligence to identify and cou ...

Electronic monitoring (EM) represents a promising opportunity for fishery management of the future. Yet after nearly two decades of implementation less than 1% of the world’s fishing fleet are able to participate in these programs. Cost remains a key barrier to the implementation of these programs and the primary cost drivers are manual video review, data transmission and data storage. Our SBIR ...

This project will build upon research conducted during a Phase I SBIR effort, which showed that germicidal UV-C radiation emitted by LEDs installed inside of submerged radiometers can reach levels known to prevent biofouling (accumulation of biological matter) on their external optical surfaces (windows, diffusers) without affecting the instrument’s measurements. This technology will improve the ...