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U.S. DOT FY 2023 Phase I Pre-Solicitation Q&A


* * * 2/3/23 Update: The Pre-solicitation is now closed. Topic questions are no longer being accepted. * * *

This U.S. DOT Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Pre-solicitation Q&A Forum provides small businesses an opportunity to submit clarifying questions on the topics published in the U.S. DOT Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Phase I Pre-Solicitation. Questions will be answered by the Technical Experts/Topic Authors at the U.S.DOT Operating Administrations during this period. Questions shall be limited to improving the understanding of a particular topic's requirements and should not share proposal ideas nor proprietary information.


The U.S. DOT’s FY 2023 Pre-Solicitation period is January 4, 2023, through February 3, 2023, at 5:00 pm Eastern Time (ET). Only questions posted within this period will be responded to.

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52 results found

  1. Please clarify the scope of 23-FH2 innovation

    There are already many commercial solutions available that detect vehicle types/classes, counts, speed, etc. using legacy computations or AI detection from piezo loops, fiber optic sensors, camera images/video, and other WIM stations. Many of the available solutions also provide edge IoT devices that can be powered by solar batteries. It is NOT clear what new innovation this topic is about? Will the innovation be in detection and classification from various sensor/camera data, in deploying algorithms on the edge devices to process big streams of data, in communicating data to the cloud? All of these have already been developed in commercial…

    5 votes

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  2. Design Requirement Clarification

    Is the requirement for each sensor to integrate an edge computing chip directly, or would a gateway-based approach that locally aggregates and analyzes data be acceptable?

    3 votes

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  3. Alternate Hardware Form Factors?

    Redesigning a traffic sensor to include an embedded chip often can require a significant non-recuring engineering cost and also alter the cost economics of the sensor (an edge processing chip could add >$30 to the sensor’s retail price). This can prevent commercial adoption of such technology, as products may no longer be price competitive. The cost to develop and produce such a custom embedded chip is also typically several millions of dollars.

    In transportation industries such as airports, ports, and rail, other hardware form factors have successfully enabled this use case as well. An ITS example is the Advanced Traffic…

    3 votes

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  4. Prototype Training & Testing?

    In regard to 23-FH2, what types of data, if any, will be used to test and train the working scaled prototype?

    3 votes

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  5. What specific data should be extracted by the algorithm?

    What specific data should be extracted as information by the in-situ information extraction computer algorithm?

    3 votes

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  6. "low power consuming edge computing chip"

    Can you please provide some more clarity about what you mean by "low-power consuming edge computing chip"? Do you have a specific "low-power" requirement (or range) in mind?

    3 votes

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  7. Was the edge computing chip already selected?

    Was the edge computing chip already selected? If so, are there any further details about it? Question is from the following line: "The vision is to integrate the low-power consuming edge computing chip with the traditional traffic data sensors"

    4 votes

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  8. Can you list some technologies or commercial sensors that were cited in the solicitation?

    Can you list some technologies or commercial sensors that were cited in the solicitation as "badge-type sensors and watch-type sensors" for hazardous gas detection?

    2 votes

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  9. Edge Device Dynamic Location

    Does "in situ" explicitly indicate static locations at road infrastructure or could the edge devices be dynamically moving with road users?

    4 votes

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  10. Detection of

    Is the topic asking for the development of a device that generates CO2 that mimics a child's breathing? If so, I assume this will later be used to test CO2 sensors that can be deployed? Would the topic authors be open to other technologies for detecting presence of the child in the car?

    3 votes

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  11. Relationship to law enforcement career learning curriculum

    When would this training be presented to officers? Experienced officers or early recruits? Is the hope that this system will be available for career-long learning? (as opposed to a class they pass and never go back to)

    2 votes

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  12. Relationship with current training and task emphasis

    1. Is this VR trainer intended to supplement/add to or replace current training?
    2. Are there any tasks/specific aspects of current training they hope this VR system will improve?
    2 votes

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  13. VR accessibility

    Is there expectation that the final VR training product should be accessible primarily in VR headsets or should it be accessible on tablet and/or computer hardware as well?

    2 votes

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  14. Data Types?

    In regard to 23-FH2, will the low-power consuming edge computing chip be expected to process only video or will there be other types of data? Further, what is considered a "traditional traffic data sensor"? Are there other sensors the low-power consuming chip will be expected to integrate with?

    3 votes

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  15. Communications Aspects of Solicitation

    In regard to 23-FH2, will developers also be responsible for designing the communications aspect of this solicitation?

    3 votes

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  16. Chip Form Factor?

    In regard to 23-FH2, is there an ideal form factor for the low-power consuming edge computing chip?

    2 votes

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  17. Impairment detection stage

    Is the topic interested in detection of impairment while a vehicle is driving down the road only (looking at driving behavior), after the stop (ala a field sobriety test looking at physiological behavior), or both?

    3 votes

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  18. 2 votes

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  19. 2 votes

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  20. Detection Requirement Clarification

    Can some please clarify this requirement: " Inspection of external tie features include" ... "section depth (detection of the effects of tie abrasion in the ballast)"

    It is not clear to me how section depth and effects of abrasion in ballast are related.

    1 vote

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