I-Corps: Maintenance Dredging Innovations for Coastal Flooding Prevention

目前的疏浚技术造成了广泛的环境破坏，导致陆军工程兵团、国家自然资源部和疏浚承包商的项目成本高昂。因此，该团队设计了“微挖泥船”，并一直在进行客户发现研究，以确保其创新与市场的真正痛苦保持一致。“微挖泥船”就像航道上的Roomba。这是一个智能的机器人系统，可以在较少的环境干扰和人类参与的情况下连续自主地清除沉积物。而不是每10年做一次根管，微挖泥船？为客户提供更常规的解决方案，比如每天刷牙。拟议的团队为其客户提供的核心价值是减少对环境的影响，包括通过减少设备动员和运营成本，减少90%的化石燃料消耗和50%-80%的总体项目成本。因此，“微挖泥船”有潜力扩大现有的27亿美元的维护疏浚市场，将传统疏浚技术无法提供服务的水道包括在内，这显然有助于为水道提供服务的承包商和水体中的商业或娱乐活动。i-Corps团队开发了概念验证原型，以验证其技术操作的各个方面；该团队目前正在完成其测试版原型的开发。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，在其商业化的道路上继续前进。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，同时还连接到关键资源和合作伙伴。在专家导师的指导下，这些活动给了团队信心，他们将能够在项目结束时展示可行的商业模式和商业化计划。

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.