Award Data

Commercially available unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) are not well designed to meet requirements for many atmospheric measurement applications, including deployment from ships, long endurance, and low cost. Multi-rotor UASs have recently gained popularity as a lowcost platform use in measurement and monitoring applications, but these systems have limited endurance and payload capabilities. Exist ...

Ensuring the health of coastal marine ecosystems has emerged as one of the primary environmental concerns of this century. Frequent monitoring of water quality is required to establish baseline levels, allow identification of anomalies, and enable early detection of problems. Citizen science programs have been shown to be a highly effective method of monitoring water quality. Creare proposes to de ...

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 ...

Accurate marine weather nowcasts and forecasts are critical requirements for mariners to maintain situational awareness and ensure safe navigation for vessels, passengers, crew, and cargo. To best achieve this, reliable observations of atmospheric and sea conditions must be available at high spatial and temporal coverage. Unfortunately, existing approaches for marine weather observations are inade ...

Water expansion during freeze-thaw cycles can cause deterioration in concrete, leading to scaling, cracking, and crumbling over a period of years. Resistance to this damage is achieved with a system of voids formed by adding surfactants to the fresh concrete to stabilize air bubbles naturally entrained during mixing. The volume fraction, size, and spacing of these voids are critical. It is importa ...

Broken rails are a common cause of mainline derailments and a particular concern given the increasing use of our rail system for passenger traffic and petroleum products. The progressive nature of the defects provides an opportunity for early detection of cracks before they become significant enough to cause a derailment. Unfortunately, current inspection technology does not allow these inspection ...

Use of motorcycles helmets significantly reduces the risk of fatality or serious brain injury to riders in the event of a crash, but riders often do not wear helmets in warm weather because of thermal discomfort. We propose to develop an innovative ventilation and cooling system that will maintain a cool, dry environment inside the helmet while also meeting applicable safety standards. The key the ...

This SBIR Phase I proposal to FHWA requests support for Elliott Technologies, Inc. to demonstrate the feasibility of using a handheld device or a single board computer to verify a simple interface between a user and simulated Safety Warning System messages, Simulated dedicated short range communications, and simulated High accuracy nationwide differential GPS. The significance of this proposal wi ...

We propose to determine what outputs from the SSAJ measurement system would be suitable for traffic control applications, to determine what the "real time" needs and accuracies are for measurements of signature, speed, acceleration, and jerk (SSAJ), to integrate the output of our IST-222 Standard Signature Output Card with and Advanced Transportation Contorller (ATC) and finally to demonstrate pro ...