Award Data

Development of a reflection control and direction device (RCDD) is proposed. This innovative device will progress the state of the art for propulsion of solar sails used to fly space weather monitoring sensors to sub-LaGrange point orbits for earlier warning times of impending destructive space weather events. A reflection control device (RCD) utilizes polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) mater ...

Drought is responsible for $327.7B in economic loss since 1980 in the United States and typically precedes, cooccurs, or initiates other hazards like wildfires or prolonged periods of intense heat. The compounding or cascading of these hazards routinely threatens the wellbeing and stability of communities. The economic impact from drought can be especially harsh when the drought begins rapidly in ...

"Jaia Robotics’ low-cost, micro-sized hybrid uncrewed surface/underwater vehicles called JaiaBotsTM can be deployed from the shore or vessels. The system enables truly affordable multivehicle operations that can be scaled to provide wide area synoptic data collection. In the proposed effort the project team will develop a JaiaBot which is air-deployable from sonobuoy launch tubes to collect atmo ...

A cloud based system for sharing bathymetric survey data collected by FarSounder customers is proposed as a way(1) to improve safety of navigation on our oceans, (2) to collect measurements for the broader scientific and maritime communities and (3) to generally explore and broadly share information about our oceans in fulfillment of ideas proposed in Topic 9.3 “The Changing Ocean”, and in acc ...

The construction, operation, and maintenance of roadways generates pollutants such as sediment, heavy metals, and nutrients; pollutants which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) identify as the most widespread in impeding the beneficial uses of the Nation’s rivers and streams.DOTs primarily rely on passive stormwater best management practices (BMPs) or stormwater control measures (S ...

Prescribed burns are a critical aspect of land management, but they require vegetation data that is hard to obtain at high resolution and on the timescale required. Our autonomous UAV collects critical fire modeling variables through subcanopy flight, enabling rapid surveys for faster and safer burn planning. In Phase I, we proved the feasibility of mapping live fuel moisture content (LFMC) with s ...

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 ...

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 ...

Connected and Automated Vehicle (CV/AV) technologies are rapidly advancing and are poised to transform the transportation industry. As vehicles move beyond current Level 1 and Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) towards full Level 5 autonomy access to reliable positioning information becomes increasingly important. Many, if not all, of the safety benefits provided by connected and au ...