Award Data

In 2006, the FRA introduced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to enhance intra-train communications on Tier I passenger cars. This rulemaking would promote the safety of passengers and crew members in passenger train emergencies by enhancing FRA's regulations for passenger train emergency systems. The rulemaking specifically addresses passenger train emergency communication systems, includi ...

Although the market clearly has several ride quality meters commercially available, the FRA wishes to investigate the possibility of designing a very compact and ultra portable ride quality meter (UPRQM) for allowing railroad inspectors to assess ride safety and quality on revenue trains as well as track locations responsible for the worst ride. Given the emergence of micro-electro-mechanical sys ...

N/A

Cities must perform detailed assessments of sidewalks and streets, including curb ramps, pedestrian signals, crosswalks, street furniture, and other components to determine compliance with the Public Rights-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines. However, current assessment methods are inadequate or unreasonable due to time and resources required. The objectives of this project are to: 1) develop elect ...

One of the causes of derailments occurs when the track gage is no longer compliant with the FRA track safety standards for gage measurments. Ensuring track gage is in compliance with the FRA track safety standards is therefore of paramount importance to the FRA. Currently, the FRA wishes to develop a non-contact track gage measurement system that overcomes the limitations of current systems (unr ...

This proposal seeks to produce a unique thermographic coating inspection system that is customized for the inspection of bridge coatings. This system uses active thermography where IR sources are used to provide controlled heating to a coating system. The presence of a defect in a coating system will result in differences in heat flow, which can be imaged with an infrared camera. An off-the-she ...

Planphoria will research, define and develp methods to turn our nation's roadways into a giant energy collection and transference system that produces low cost electrical energy close to point of use. Though roadway environmental conditions change, and different roadway requirements vastly differ from the requirements of other roadways, we will determine the feasibility of this concept by leading ...

N/A

A NAVIGATION DATA REPORTER (NAVREP) WHICH PROVIDES THE BEST ESTIMATE OF USER POSITION FROM AVAILABLE NAV AIDS IS PROPOSED AS A SOURCE OFTRACKING DATA FOR DEPENDENT SU TSURVEILLANCE IN OCEANIC AIRSPACE OR AREAS WITH ATC COVERAGE GAPS. NAVREP ALGORITHMS ARE TO BE DEVELOPED FOR ON BOARD OR GROUND-BASED NAVIGATION DATA INTEGRATION AND F DFAULT DETECTION/ISOLATION. ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY WILL FOCUS ON: 1) ...

Transecurity is a company whose mission is to commercialize technology developed at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. VTTI researchers and engineers have made significant breakthroughs in driver monitoring, crash risk assessment, and crash avoidance technology including drowsy driver monitoring and warning systems. Technical solutions under development include machine vision-based lane ...