Project Grant 23DG11094200419

This Project Grant award from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, under the Wood Utilization Assistance program (CFDA 10.674), provides $600,000.00 to Cersosimo Lumber Co, Inc. to install a computerized grading and trimming system at their lumber grading and sorting facility in Brattleboro, Vermont. The system will grade both softwood and hardwood lumber with 85-95% accuracy, detect defects, assess optimal cutting yield, and automatically trim the lumber to...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service awarded a $1,512,183 Community Wood Energy and Wood Innovation Program (CFDA 10.708) Project Grant to BPM Lumber LLC on September 21, 2023. The grant will fund the purchase and installation of a hardwood artificial intelligence optimized grading and ripping vision scanning system for their manufacturing operations in Kentucky. The objective is to promote forest health, stimulate local economies, and expand renewable wood energy utilization...

This $3,531,686 Project Grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (CFDA 10.309) program, is intended to develop and transfer an automated and integrated mobile system (AIMS) for commercial harvest, in-field pre-sorting, and quality recording of harvested apples. The project aims to leverage recent progress in robotic harvesting and pre-sorting technologies to alleviate labor shortages and...

Sangali, Inc. was awarded a $275,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) on February 15, 2023 to develop a novel wood identification technology. Through state-of-the-art chemical analysis methods and machine learning techniques, Sangali will create a database to reliably identify the species, age, and geographic origin of wood and composite materials. Key deliverables under the one-year award include analyzing...

Nicolet Hardwoods Corporation received a $1,615,000 Project Grant award from the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service to support the Wood Innovation: Bio-Mass Boiler Energy Project. The grant was awarded on August 31, 2021 under the Wood Utilization Assistance federal grant program (CFDA #10.674), with a completion date of May 25, 2024. The project aims to provide direct technical assistance and support the development of new and emerging wood utilization technologies. Specifically, the...

This Cooperative Agreement award of $995,163 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program supports the development of an autonomous waste sorting platform for decentralized pre-processing at high-traffic venues. The project aims to create a compact, high-throughput, and turnkey sorting system that leverages computer vision and machine learning to accurately identify and sort diverse waste streams, enabling improved landfill...

This $1,160,000 Project Grant was awarded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service under the Wood Utilization Assistance program (CFDA 10.674) to the National Hardwood Lumber Association of Tennessee, Inc. The grant aims to address challenges faced by the hardwood lumber industry, including slow adoption of innovative processes, labor-intensive workforce, and lack of product promotion, which have led to market share losses to substitute products and imports. The key...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service awarded a $600,000 Project Grant under the Wood Utilization Assistance program (CFDA 10.674) to Greentree Forest Products, Inc. to modernize a sawmill in Wallingford, Kentucky. The project will install an automated lumber grading and handling system, including a grade and trim line with an integrated stacking system, to improve the sawmill's operations. This grant is part of the USDA Forest Service's efforts to expand and accelerate wood...

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program (CFDA 10.212) provides $124,586.00 to Premier Design Innovations LLC to develop an innovative device capable of navigating within grain bins to manage stored grains like corn, soybeans, wheat, and milo. The goal is to reduce the need for farmers to manually enter...

The Department of Agriculture Forest Service awarded a $1 million Project Grant under the Community Wood Energy and Wood Innovation Program (CFDA 10.708) to Robbins Lumber, Inc. on September 19, 2022. The grant will support Robbins Lumber's implementation of value-based scanning to better utilize the white pine resource through July 31, 2025. As indicated in the program description, funding can be used to supplement capital costs associated with installing a wood energy system utilizing wood and...