I-Corps: Maintenance Dredging Innovations for Coastal Flooding Prevention

I-Corps：预防沿海洪水的维护疏浚创新

• 批准号: 1565707
• 负责人: David Garmire
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Hawaii
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-10-15 至 2016-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1565707&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Maintenance; Dredging; Innovations; Coastal

Current dredging technologies cause extensive environmental damage, resulting in high project costs for the Army Corps of Engineers, State Departments of Natural Resources, and dredging contractors. As such, this team has designed the "Microdredger" and has been continually conducting customer discovery research, to ensure that its innovations align with the real pains in the marketplace. The "Microdredger" is like the Roomba for waterways. It's an intelligent, robotic system that can continuously and autonomously remove sediment with less environmental disturbance and human involvement. Instead of a root canal once every 10 years, the Microdredger? offers its customers a more regular solution, like brushing your teeth every day. The core values the proposed team offers its customers are reduced environmental impact, including a 90% reduction in fossil fuel consumption and a 50-80% reduction of overall project costs by reducing equipment mobilization and operation costs. As a result, the "Microdredger" has the potential to expand the existing $2.7 billion maintenance dredging market to include waterways that cannot be serviced with traditional dredging technologies obviously helping both the contractors servicing the waterways and the commercial or recreational activity in the waterbody.This I-Corps team has developed proof-of-concept prototypes to validate various aspects of its technological operations; the team is currently finishing up the development of its beta prototype. At the end of the project, the team expects to be able to present a sound, validated business model from which it can move forward with, in its path to commercialization. The proposed activities, centered around customer discovery and feasibility research, will allow the team the valuable opportunity to explore and test different distribution channels and revenue models, among other aspects, while also connecting to key resources and partners. These activities, guided by expert mentors, give the team the confidence that they will be able to demonstrate a feasible business model and commercialization plan at the close of the project.

目前的疏浚技术造成了广泛的环境破坏，导致美国陆军工程兵团、国家自然资源部和疏浚承包商的项目成本很高。因此，该团队设计了“微型挖掘机”，并一直在不断进行客户发现研究，以确保其创新与市场上的真实的难题保持一致。“微型挖泥船”就像是水路的Roomba。这是一个智能的机器人系统，可以连续和自主地去除沉积物，减少环境干扰和人类参与。代替每10年一次的根管治疗，微型疏通器？为顾客提供更有规律的解决方案，比如每天刷牙。该团队为客户提供的核心价值是减少对环境的影响，包括减少90%的化石燃料消耗，并通过减少设备动员和运营成本来减少50-80%的总体项目成本。因此，“微型挖泥船”有可能扩大现有的27亿美元的维护疏浚市场，将传统疏浚技术无法维护的水道包括在内，这显然有助于维护水道的承包商和水体中的商业或娱乐活动。该小组目前正在完成其beta原型的开发。在项目结束时，该团队希望能够提出一个健全的，经过验证的商业模式，从中可以向前迈进，在其商业化的道路上。拟议的活动以客户发现和可行性研究为中心，将使团队有宝贵的机会探索和测试不同的分销渠道和收入模式等方面，同时也与关键资源和合作伙伴建立联系。这些活动在专家导师的指导下，使团队相信他们能够在项目结束时展示可行的商业模式和商业化计划。