STTR) Program Proposals Selected for Negotiation of STTR Phase I Contracts Sorted by Company and Proposal Number
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program Proposals Selected for Negotiation of STTR Phase I Contracts Sorted by Company and Proposal Number AEROMOVER SYSTEMS COW 2500 BISHOP CIRCLE DEXTER, MI 48130 RONALD A. MEYER 313-426-2376 THE UNIIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3003 SOUTH STATE ST A” ARBOR, MI 48109 94-03-940085 LaRC DIFFERENTIATED UNIVERSAL END EFFECTOR AIRBORNE RESEARCH ASSOCIATES 46 KENDAL COMMON RD WESTON, MA 02193 RALPH J. MARKSON 617-899-1834 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 244 WOOD ST LEXINGTON, MA 02173 94-0 1-940092 LaRC LASI: LIGHTNING AND STORM INTENSITY/WEATHER WARNING SYSTEM AMHERST SYSTEMS INC 30 WILSON RD BUFFALO, NY 14221 DONALD A. HESS 716-631-0610 STATE UNWERSlTY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO 3435 MAIN ST BUFFALO, NY 14214 94-03-940 104 LaRC FOVEAL SENSOR AND IMAGE PROCESSOR PROTOTYPE ARNAV SYSTEMS INC 16923 MERIDIAN EAST PUYALLUP, WA 98373 FRANK WILLIAMS 206-848-6060 RESEARCH TRIANGLE INSTITUTE 525 BUTLER FARM RD SUITE 108 HAMPTON, VA 23666-1564 94-0 1-940024 LaRC AN AFFORDABLE GENERAL AVIATION INTEGRATED COCKPIT DISPLAY SYSTEM -more- -2- CIRRUS DESIGN COW 4515 TAYLOR CIRCLE DULUTH, MN 55811 DEAN VOGEL 218-727-2737 RESEARCH TRIANGLE INSTITUTE 3040 CORNWALLIS RD RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC 27709 94-0 1-940152 LaRC LOW COST AIRCRAFT ENGINE AND FLIGHT DATA RECORDING SYSTEM CYBER.NET SYSTEMS COW 1919 GREEN RD, SUITE B-101 ANN ARBOR, MI 48105 HEIDI N. JACOBUS 3 13-668-2567 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 2901 HUBBARD ANN ARBOR, MI 48109-2106 94-0 1-940060 LaRC A LOW-COST HIGH-PERFORMANCE VISUAL-AUDITORY-TACTILE VIRTUAL REALITY TRAINER ENDOROBOTICS COW 5 DEERWOOD TRAIL P.O. BOX 4408 WARREN, NJ 07059 DANIEL AHN 908-271-9088 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY REGENTS UNIVERSITY 336 SPROUL HALL, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 94-03-940029 LaRC MILLI-ROBOTS FOR SURGICAL TELEOPERATION INTEGRINAUTICS COW P.O. BOX 9475 STANFORD, CA 94309 CLARK E. COHEN 415-725-4124 STANFORD UNIVERSITY *. DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS STANFORD, CA 94305-4085 94-0 1-940048 LaRC HIGH INTEGRITY PRECISION LANDING FOR GENERAL AVIATION USING THE GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM -more- T l -3- KNOWLEDGE BASED SYSTEMS INC 1408 UNIVERSITY DR EAST COLLEGE STATION, TX 77840-2335 PAULA S. DEWITI'E 409-260-5274 TEXAS ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT STATION TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY COLLEGE STATION, TX 77843 94-0 1-940055 LaRC GENERAL AVIATION PILOT ADVISORY AND TRAINING SYSTEM (GAPATS) MID-SOUTH ENGINEERING INC P.O. BOX 128015 NASHVILLE, TN 37212 ROBEWT JOEL BARNE" 515-383-8877 TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY 3500 JOHN A. MERRI'IT BLVD NASHVILLE, TN 37209 94-03-940020 LaRC SPHERICAL MOTOR AND NEURAL CONTROLLER FOR MICRO-PRECISON ROBOT WRIST QUALITY INFORMATION SYSTEMS INC 10680 WEST PIC0 BLVD SUITE 260 LOS ANGELES, CA 90064 JOEL FLEISS 3 10-287-0728 UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 4732 BOELTER HALL LOS ANGELES, CA 90024- 1596 94-02-9400 11 GSFC ELECTRONIC INTERACTIVE DOCUMENT CHANGE REQUESTS ROBOTICS RESEARCH COW P.O. BOX 206 AMELIA, OH 45102 JAMES P. KARLEN 513-831-9570 JET PROPULSION LABORATORY 4800 OAK GROVE DR PASADENA, CA 91 109 94-03-940 120 LaRC NEXT GENERATION CONTROLLER FOR REDUNDANT ROBOTS SEAGULL TECHNOLOGY INC 1310 HOLLENBECK AVE SUNWALE, CA 94087 JOHN A. SORENSEN 408-732-9620 STANFORD UNIVERSITY AERONAUTICS & ASTRONAUTICS DEPARTMENT STANFORD, CA 94305 94-0 1-940108 LaRC GPS-BASED ATTITUDE AND VELOCITY ESTIMATION SYSTEM T -4- TRANSITIONS RESEARCH CORP SHELTER ROCK LN DANBURY, CT 06810-8159 JOHN M. EVANS JR. 203-798-8988 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT MAIL CODE 0781 LOS ANGELES, CA 90089-0781 94-03-94015 1 LaRC COMBINED DISTANCE AND ORIENTATION SENSOR (CODOS) VISUAL INSPECTION TECHNOLOGIES INC 27-2 IRONIA RD FWDERS, NJ 07836-9124 WILLIAM R. SIGRIST 20 1-927-0033 SRI INTERNATIONAL 333 RAVENSWOOD AVE MENLO PARK, CA 94025 94-03-940097 LaRC MOBILE MAGNETIC ROBOTS FOR INSPECTION OF STEEL STRUCTURES - end - Dante I1 at Mt.Spurr July 1994 Press Kit II - .. T 1 - 7 Charles Redmond Headquarters, Washington, D.C. (Phone: 202-358- 1757) Anne Watzman Carnegie Mellon University (Phone: 4 12-268-3830) Susan Russell-Robinson U.S. Geological Survey Headquarters (Phone: 703-648-4460) Dr. Fred Pearce Univ. Alaska-Anchorage Dept. of Journalism (Phone: 907-786-4739) General Release RELEASE: 94-Dante July6, 1994 NASA-UNIVERSITY TEAM SET TO EXPLORE VOLCANO WITH ROBOT During the third week of July, an eight-legged, tethered robot will descend into the active crater of Mt. Spurr, an Alaskan volcano 80 miles west of Anchorage. The r,obot, Dante 11, will be controlled, via satellite and Internet connections, by a team with representatives from NASA, Carnegie Mellon University, the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and other government, university and private organizations. The robot, Dante 11. is a direct descendant of the Dante robot which tried over the 1992-93 New Year's holiday to descend into the live Antarctic volcano Mt. Erebus. That mission ended with the robot only 28 feet into the crater when the fiber optic cable, which was its communications lifeline. kinked and was broken due to physical and temperature stress conditions. The Dante I1 robot will be deployed into the active, steeply-sloping vent of the young satellitic crater on the south slope of the historic volcano Mt. Spurr this July 18 to begin a scheduled five-day scientific-sample taking exploration of the crater floor. Minimum cost a major factor in project NASA has provided $1.7 million to Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, Field Robotics Center to redesign, test and advance the basic mechanical, electronic and computer technologies of the Dante robot mechanism in order to carry out this project. The Dante I project in Antarctica was executed, from start to conclusion, for about $2 million. The Dante I1 project has relied on NASA funding and in-kind services or loaned hardware in order to proceed. The agency goals for this project are aimed directIy at contributions to space exploration which can be made from advances in human telepresence, robot exploration, and communications and computer technologies. The Carnegie Mellon University has interests which include extending the results of this demonstration to more practical applications elsewhere on Earth including additional volcanic exploration, mining and mine safety operations, large-scale agricultural deployment (remotely-controlled reaping of huge fields for example), and hazardous environment operations for industrial and municipal organizations. Carnegie Mellon University, NASA and several industrial firms recently inaugurated the Robotics Consortium in Pittsburgh to further these practical and potentially profitable commercial goals. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), operated jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Alaska State Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, has a goal of obtaining in situ data on the chemical and temperature properties of the crater floor, and a higher resolution geomorphological map of the crater interior. The University of Alaska-Anchorage is providing housing support for all the Dante team members and additionally is providing significant logistics and student work-study and volunteer support for the public information elements of this project. Contributions to the project from Eastman Kodak Company, GCI Communications, Inc., W.L. Gore Inc., VTEL Inc., Chugach Electric Power, Inc., StereoGraphics Inc., and others are aimed at showing the usefulness and applicability of those firms' products and services to scientific and technical projects such as this with additional goals of potentially increasing the end-user market for these firms' products or services. Telerobotics will improve human-robot interactions NASA's Telerobotics Program encompasses research and development activities at many NASA centers and a large number of associated firms and universities. Carnegie Mellon University's Field Robotics Center (part of the university's Robotics Institute) has developed expertise in ambulatory robots -- robots which walk. Other kinds of locomotion which are being pursued by NASA and its allies include robots which use wheels, robots which are suspended between opposing tethers such as "spider" robots, robots with single and multiple dexterous limbs (the most common kind used in industrial capacities and which includes welding robots), and free-flying robots with sensors or dexterous limbs (envisioned as potential orbital retrieval and maintenance devices such as the University of Maryland's Ranger project). The objectives which were pursued in the Antarctic two years ago included validating several robot technologies in harsh and unforgiving environments, and to ultimately transfer these technologies to future planetary missions. This technology validation including evaluating the utility of legged vehicles in harsh terrains and demonstrating the ability of communications links and computer software programs to enable a human located remotely from the robot to both "sense" the environment (the telepresence element) and to effectively direct the actions of the remote robot (computer assisted and enhanced remote control elements). Both of these objectives remain NASA goals for the Dante I1 mission in Alaska. The cold and dry climate of the Earth's Antarctic region is close enough that some simulations representing the environmental conditions which would be found on Mars can be simulated and mechanical operation in these conditions can be assessed and advanced. Volcanoes remain hazardous duty to human geologists Both 'NASA and AVO are interested in proving the concept of remote, robotic, volcano explorations since many of the volcanoes of interest are also extremely hazardous to human exploration. Eight volcanologists have died in recent accidents while attempting to descend into volcanoes located as distant as Japan and Ecuador. The crater inside Mt. Spurr is considered too dangerous for human exploration but is of interest to the AVO science team and to the Volcano Hazards Program of the USGS.