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10/20/2008

NOAA Invites Small Business Research Projects
by Mildred Holley, Technology Programs Manager

As projected in our last issue of Tech Track, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its Fiscal Year 2009 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program solicitation on October 15, 2008. The deadline for receipt of proposals in hard copy form, delivered to NOAA’s Kansas City acquisition division office, is 4:00 p.m. CST on January 14, 2009. A PDF version of the announcement is available at www.oar.noaa.gov/orta.

NOAA Phase I SBIR awards provide up to six months for project performance and a maximum budget of $95,000. The agency projects that it will make approximately 10 awards in the form of fixed-price contracts.

Research topics that NOAA includes in this solicitation are:

1. Ecosystems,
• Tissue culture technology for eelgrass restoration
• Coral cell-culture and tissue-culture lines
• Rapid test and observing system sensors for harmful algal blooms
• Diver air pressure safety alert system
• Microsensors for marine chemical and microbial measurements
• Development of small-scale satellite tags to characterize long-term dispersal patterns and habitats of small sea turtles and other epipelagic marine species and sea birds
• As film based camera systems give way to digital cameras, inexpensive systems must be developed to allow scientists to collect high resolution images from aircraft flying at high speeds and low
• Aquaculture: sustainable marine aquaculture operations
• Aquaculture: sustainable marine aquaculture management
• Development of resilient structures and infrastructure systems using advanced building technologies
• Aquaculture: culture for marine organisms for marine natural products

2. Climate,
• Autonomous dissolved inorganic and total alkalinity measurement systems for profiling and mooring systems
• Real-time measurements of gas phase carbon dioxide and methane isotopes
• Numerical integration packages for stochastic models
• Geospatial database for storm risk assessment
• Hyperstectral image projection systems for satellite sensor pre-launch characterization

3. Weather and Water,
• In situ GPS measurements from a low-cost balloon-borne GPS instrument
• Compact, eye-safe, all-weather ground-based water vapor profiling lidar
• Cross polarization isolation techniques for phased array weather radars

4. Commerce and Transportation
• Water level monitoring system for arctic and Antarctic coastal oceans

More information about NOAA’s SBIR program, past awards and last year’s solicitation can be found at the website address in this article.

Arkansas entrepreneurs and researchers interested in learning more about this or other SBIR/STTR opportunities are encouraged to contact Mildred Holley at lcfine@ualr.edu, 501.683.7700 or 800.862.2040 (AR only).

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The Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration through a partnership with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock College of Business and other institutions of higher education. All opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA. It is the goal of UALR to eliminate discriminatory harassment and to promote equal opportunity regardless of race, gender, color, national origin, sexual orientation, age, religion, veteran's status, or disability.