U. S. Department of Transportation Small Business Innovation Research Fiscal Year 2020 Solicitation

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program invites small business concerns to review this pre-solicitation notice for opportunities within its Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) SBIR Phase I solicitation.

THIS IS A PRE-SOLICITATION NOTICE; NO SUBMISSIONS ARE ACCEPTED AT THIS TIME.

The pre-solicitation period for U.S. DOT’s FY20 solicitation is from January 6, 2020 through January 29, 2020 at 5:00 pm Eastern Time (ET). Full descriptions of U.S. DOT’s proposed FY20 Phase I solicitation research topics can be found in Appendix A: U.S. DOT SBIR Proposed FY20 Phase I Research Topics.

During the pre-solicitation period, technical questions concerning the proposed research topics must be directed to the U.S. DOT SBIR Program Office via email at DOTSBIR@dot.gov. Questions shall be limited to specific information related to improving the understanding of a particular topic's requirements. Telephone inquiries or meeting requests will not be addressed.

Potential offerors should not seek advice or guidance on its solution to any given topic nor submit any materials other than questions(s) regarding the topic. The U.S. DOT shall not respond to requests for advice or guidance on any offeror’s solution to any SBIR topic, and shall not consider any submitted materials other than questions. Potential offerors shall not include in the question(s) any information that they do not wish to be made public. The U.S. DOT SBIR Program Office intends to publish all questions and corresponding answers to the public.

Technical questions regarding the research topics will be accepted only during the pre-solicitation period (January 6, 2020 through January 29, 2020). Technical questions will not be accepted after 5:00 pm ET on January 29, 2020. Only questions received by email as cited above prior to the deadline will be compiled by the U.S. DOT SBIR Program Office and sent to the U.S. DOT research topic authors for response. Answers to these questions will be available on the U.S. DOT SBIR Program website (https://www.volpe.dot.gov/sbir) when the U.S. DOT FY20 SBIR Phase I solicitation is released on or about February 6, 2020.

Additionally, potential offerors will have the opportunity to ask questions in person with many of the U.S. DOT research topic authors and U.S. DOT SBIR Program Office personnel at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting (http://www.trb.org/AnnualMeeting) in Washington, D.C. January 12-14, 2020. U.S. DOT SBIR Program Office personnel will be at booth #835 in the exhibit hall and will be available to answer questions about the program January 12-14. Many of the topic authors will be available at the booth for questions pertaining to their topics January 13-14 during limited times. A schedule and further details are available at https://www.volpe.dot.gov/sbir. Please note that questions asked during the TRB meeting will not be documented, unless the questions are also submitted by email to DOTSBIR@dot.gov. The Government, however, reserves the right to use any information received during the TRB Meeting to clarify or otherwise promote the SBIR solicitation to be issued.  

The U.S. DOT anticipates release of its FY20 Phase I solicitation on or about February 6, 2020. An informational webinar about the solicitation and new program changes is tentatively scheduled for February 11, 2020 at 1:00 pm ET. More information on how to register for this webinar will be available on the U.S. DOT SBIR website and in the solicitation when it is issued.

Upon solicitation release, only small businesses as defined in the Small Business Administration (SBA) SBIR Policy Directive, are eligible to submit offers to the U.S. DOT SBIR FY20 Phase I solicitation. Additionally, all small business offerors must be registered in the following databases: SBA’s Company Registry Database (https://www.sbir.gov/registration) and the System for Award Management (SAM) (https://sam.gov/SAM/).

The proposed FY20 research topics are listed below.

Full descriptions of each research topic are included in Appendix A, which is attached to this notice.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) topic:

20-FA1: Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) of Critical Nickel Turbine Engine Parts

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) topics:

20-FH1: Physical Intervention System for Wrong-way Driving on Ramps

20-FH2: Innovative Layered Composite Metal Deck System

20-FH3: Real-time Monitoring and Modeling of Scour

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) topics:

20-FR1: Autonomous Track Inspection Technology

20-FR2: AI-Aided Machine Vision for Grade Crossing Safety

20-FR3: Platform Edge Proximity Detection to Prevent Inadvertent Passenger Car Door Opening

20-FR4: Crushed Aggregate Gradation Evaluation System

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) topic:

20-NH1: In-Vehicle Occupant Detection System

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) topics:

20-PH1: Development and Validation of Inline Inspection (ILI) Technologies for Circumferential Anomalies and Bending Stresses

20-PH2: Internal Repair of Steel Transmission Pipelines

20-PH3: Geohazard Identification and Quantification for Pipeline Risk Models

20-PH4: Scaling up of Composite Metal Foam Manufacturing for HazMat Packaging