Award Data

Temperature is the critical signal that allows monitoring of a myriad of Earth’s processes. From direct measurements of wildfire and urban heat to more complex relationships with drought, agriculture, aquaculture, and biodiversity, maintaining a steady pulse on Earth’s surface temperature enables us to mitigate for and adapt to the impacts of extreme events and increasingly variable water avai ...

The brevetoxins (PbTx) produced by Karenia brevis cause harmful algal blooms (HAB) or "red tide" in seawater. Currently, the only available ways of detecting PbTx are laboratory tests such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, which are expensive and slow, and require complex instrumentation and multiple processing steps. In previous work Intelligent Optical Systems (IOS) demonstrated a compact l ...

"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 ...

Our innovation, Focused LIBS for Elements in Water IDentification (FLEW.ID), is a compact, cost-effective, and sensitive instrument for monitoring the elemental composition of aqueous solutions in plant growth systems on-board the International Space Station (ISS). FLEW.ID utilizes a miniaturized, low-pulse energy laser for performing laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) measurements that, ...

We propose an innovation for a data-driven Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) model for uncrewed aviation fleet and flight operations optimization (UA-FFOpt) that will be trained with real-world data from an active flight program in the State of Michigan and at a partner cattle ranch in Florida. UA-FFOpt will leverage our existing Intellectual Property (IP), AVIATE, and NCR. AVIATErs ...

High temperature heat acquisition and transport is a critical technology gap inhibiting full implementation of nuclear energy propulsion (NEP) and power sources for NASA inter-planetary and Lunar Surface missions.nbsp; Nuclear energy thermal management requires acquisition and transport of 4-10MW of power at 1200-1400K; the target axial heat flux is 1.0MW/m2.nbsp; Furthermore, NASA requires candid ...

It is important to consider lithium-ion battery limitations particularly regarding temperature range, to ensure safe and successful mission outcomes. We have developed a gel polymer electrolyte that meets stringent requirements of high safety, stability, and non-flammabilitynbsp;for implantable medical devices and plannbsp;to further developnbsp;this electrolyte for use in cells operating in extre ...

Commercial buildings use 35% of the entire US energy output, and up to a third of that energy is wasted. Rapidly rising fuel costs, increasing concern about climate change, and policy directives from the Biden Administration are all driving the need for increased energy efficiency and the elimination of waste. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased public awareness of t ...

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 ...