Award Data

With infrastructure costs escalating it is becoming essential to monitor the health of concrete structures so that timely maintenance can maximize their useful lives. This SBIR will demonstrate the feasibility of using a passive sensor, embedded within concrete, to measure mositure, temperature, pH and concentrations of chlorides. It will provide critical data for evaluating concrete performance s ...

Calspan Corporation, located in Buffalo, NY is proposing the research and development of the technology and methodolgy that can be used to accurately measure pedestrian exposure. Existing technologies/methodologies will be analyzed, and a technology/methodolgy that focuses on an individual pedestrian's walking history will be specified. Only technologies that are small, lightweight, reliable, an ...

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 ...

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 ...

New innovative technology for the visually impaired has been developed by NIST. If commercialized, it would provide refreshable tactile graphical information to the visually impaired, enabling them to compete on a more equal footing in the workplace and the education system.

A novel chemical vapor deposition (CVD) based step-flow epitaxy process is proposed for controllable growth of SiC nanowires with high polytype integrity. SiC nanowires will be grown in a modified commercial high-temperature CVD reactor, used by industry for growing high-quality SiC epitaxial thin films. Different polytypes of SiC nanowires will be grown by choosing appropriate substrate materials ...

More than 1,300,000 Level 1 commercial vehicle inspections - a safety-critical, time-consuming, often difficult and painstaking process, especially as regards the brake inspection component -- are performed every year in the United States, under all sorts of weather and lighting conditions. The current technology used adds to the complexity and error potential inherent in this important task. In ...

The work proposed will provide a demonstration of feasibility and specific design recommendations for building an elevated-temperature resonating crystal balance with nanogram sensitivity. The approach will build upon existing technology commercialized by Masscal for operating a QCM in a temperature-controlled calorimeter. Precise temperature control and new types of crystal sensors will be used t ...

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 ...

The most practical arrangement for investigating moving fires within a restricted space is to use a high- resolution stand off technique. One such method that fits this description is the use of a staring infrared (IR) sensing device (i.e. imager).