Project Grant 2014674

The National Science Foundation awarded Activecharge LLC a $256,000 Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop an integrated, self-powered sensor node for wind turbine blade monitoring. The one-year project will address technical hurdles such as lack of reliable energy sources and logistical challenges replacing batteries inside blades. Activecharge will prototype a sensor node that reliably harvests electrical voltage from blade...

This Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Integrative Activities (IA) program, CFDA 47.083, provides $149,980 to the University of Maine System to conduct research on the orbital motion dynamics of offshore wind turbines (OWTs) during the installation phase. The interdisciplinary project team will investigate the unique dynamics of partially installed bottom-fixed OWTs using wave tank experiments and high-fidelity numerical...

This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $255,999 awarded on August 15, 2022 will fund the development of a disruptive floating wind turbine platform optimized for low cost and extensive deployment through July 31, 2023. Under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084), T-Omega Wind Inc. will adapt the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's simulation software to characterize the unique motions of an innovative floating wind turbine system operating in a...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded Improving Aviation LLC $299,668 under the Small Business Innovation Research Program to develop a fully automated wind observing system called WINDTL. The system will allow for measurements of local wind velocity components and statistics near wildfire fronts with improved temporal and spatial resolution compared to existing satellite and weather model data. With a completion date of February 28, 2023, the project aims to provide higher...

The U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E, CFDA 81.135) awarded Perseus Materials Inc. a $498,767 Project Grant to develop a new composite fabrication process for manufacturing wind turbine blades. The goal is to create variable cross-sectional wind turbine blades using an innovative casting technique. This 2-year project, which started on October 19, 2023, aims to deliver a transformative solution that can enhance the efficiency and performance of wind...

This $311,000 National Science Foundation Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships project grant supports the development of a new class of low-power, plasma-based wind turbine icing protection systems at Iowa State University from February 1, 2022 to January 31, 2024. The university will develop novel dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuation integrated with state-of-the-art hydro-/ice-phobic coatings to actively repel ice accretion on wind turbine blades in critical regions and efficiently...

This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) totaling $256,000 was awarded to Arctura, Inc. to develop a model-free approach to maximizing annual energy production at wind farms through wake steering control of wind turbines. Specifically, the grantee will introduce an extremum seeking control strategy that allows arrays of turbines to work together to minimize power losses by steering the wakes of upstream turbines away from downwind rows. This...

The National Science Foundation Division of Industrial Innovation awarded a $255,743 Project Grant to Aerosens, Inc. under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041) to develop an energy harvesting system for self-sustaining aircraft tracking and monitoring sensors. The one-year award will support Aerosens' Phase I Small Business Innovation Research project to evaluate mechanical energy harvesting technologies for powering Bluetooth Low Energy asset tracking devices onboard aircraft....

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded Orbotic Systems Inc. a $1.3M Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant (CFDA 11.021) to continue development of the WIND (Wind Ion Neutral Density) instrument. The WIND instrument is designed to generate real-time, global ionospheric-thermospheric neutral density and wind ion data to enhance space weather forecasting and space debris risk mitigation. This builds upon Orbotic Systems' previous success with the...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) Project Grant award to Aikido Technologies Inc. for $275,000 supports the detailed engineering of a 100kW self-upending floating wind platform. The broader impact of this SBIR Phase I project is the development of a next-generation floating wind platform that could dramatically reduce the time, cost, and equipment/vessel requirements of installing commercial-scale floating wind farms. The key...