Award Data

"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 ...

We propose a high-impact innovation for weather forecasting that integrates global ensemble weather forecasts with an AI-driven post-processing model of extreme weather indices. This innovation will provide the basis for skillful probabilistic forecasts of compound extreme weather events at extended lead times. Extreme weather/climate events of relevance to electric utilities focused on in Phase I ...

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 ...

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is actively involved in the safe transportation of energy and hazardous material that are vital to daily lives. This also includes underground natural gas storage (UNGS) maintenance and safe operation which are critical to nation's energy infrastructure. Enhancing leak detection and identifying smart ways to prevent potential well blow ...

NDT of Fracture Toughness for Pipeline Steels3/16/2018Ultrasound-based technology to nondestructively determine fracture toughness of pipeline steels will be developed. Fracture toughness is the material parameter that, along with applied loading and flaw geometry, dictates the critical crack size, and therefore controls the flaw size that must be detected during inspections. A major challenge fac ...

Tragically, 936 children have died in hot cars since 1998. Wisely, NHTSA has prioritized evaluation of sensor systems in vehicles for “the ability to detect unattended children and prevent heat stroke occurrence.”Recently, innovators have developed systems that detect children present in the vehicle by measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) in the vehicle cabin, but there is no test method to assess w ...

Monitoring modern-day fisheries is extremely challenging. Every day, millions of vessels harvest the oceans, and many remain unregulated, putting target and non-target fish populations at risk of overexploitation and collapse. To combat this, fisheries managers are increasingly turning to Electronic Monitoring (EM) technologies – integrated systems of cameras and sensors – to record onboard ac ...

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is actively involved in the safe transportation of energy and hazardous material that are vital to daily lives. This also includes underground natural gas storage (UNGS) maintenance and safe operation which are critical to nation's energy infrastructure. Enhancing leak detection and identifying smart ways to prevent potential well blow ...

This SBIR effort proposes using live and continuous monitoring of metal tanks, pressure vessels, and pipelines using carbon nanomaterial-based sensing skins to detect excessive physical strains, cracks, and to inspect impact damage. The proposed research and development work leverages 15+ years of fundamental research. The key objective is to advance the TRL level and the scalability of carbon nan ...