FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 21, 2006
For more information contact:

Eugene (Gene) Watson, Program Manager
Wyoming SBIR/STTR Initiative
Phone: 307-742-7162, 307-760-0456 cell

Crile Carvey, Crile Carvey Consulting
Wheatland, Wyoming
Phone: 307.322.1823

Panamax35 LLC, Eliot Case
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Phone: 307.220.7599

Margaret Shaw, Wyoinnovations
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Phone: 307.631.7361

Innovation in the fields of hearing driving safety and hearing impairment result in SBIR grants

CHEYENNE – Southeast Wyoming firms Crile Carvey Consulting, Panamax35 and Wyoinnovations received $5,000 Wyoming SBIR/STTR Initiative (WSSI) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants through the Wyoming Business Council and the University of Wyoming this week to further their research in the fields of driver safety and hearing impairment.

One of the three Wyoming firms to win a Phase 0 grant was Sybille Canyon-based Crile Carvey Consulting, Inc. (CCC), which has begun research on a Department of Transportation solicitation aimed at increasing safety at railroad crossings. CCC’s research will result in a system for the design, manufacture and deployment of low-cost railroad grade separations. CCC’s Phase I research will focus on the construction of safe, standards-compliant railroad overpasses, featuring ground-breaking software for the preparation of pre-approved plans utilizing standardized modular bridge kits.

Crossing-wait time will amount to a present value, over the next two decades, of as much as $5.5 billion due to lost productivity. Vehicle idling costs and exhaust emissions will add another $700 million to that expense.

Panamax35, LLC hopes to develop an expandable modular system that will help keep drivers awake and alert. Existing proven alertness detectors such as "Perclose" eye closure detection and head tilt will be incorporated. A number of different forms of stimulation will be used simultaneously for maximum effect. Olfactory stimulation, temperature-altered wind toward the face, and spoken dialog with the system in the form of questions requiring relevant answers are a few of the stimulations that can be incorporated as requested by the DOT. The system also enables the addition of other technologies. For example, near-object detection can be added by incorporation of forward-looking infrared night-vision cameras.

Wyoinnovations hopes to help the hearing impaired by producing a visual hearing device that joins the Visual Hearing device joins existing hardware of a microphone, a pocket computer and a heads-up display that recreates the ambient sounds of the environment as realtime visual images. Available sound frequencies are translated into visual images that are made available through a tiny computer screen that is mounted to a pair of glasses (like a cyclist's rearview mirror).

The device is small and portable, but opens up the world of sound to the hearing-impaired person. The actual software platform which Wyoinnovations is developing will allow the user to choose the image types he or she wishes to see: icons, printed words, and wave patterns. The Visual Hearing software also lays the groundwork so that researchers and users may develop the type of "hearing" image that is most suitable for any particular task.

The SBIR Phase 0 Program helps Wyoming companies develop competitive proposals for the federal SBIR and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. The SBIR Phase 0 program is a project of the Wyoming SBIR/STTR Initiative (WSSI). The WSSI initiative is funded by the Wyoming Business Council and gives out $120,000 in Phase 0 grants each year.

The federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs make up the WSSI alliance and provide more than $2 billion annually in Research and Development (R&D) grants and contracts to qualified small businesses.

Eleven federal agencies are required by law to provide these funds by setting aside 2.5 percent of their annual extra-mural R&D budgets for use exclusively by U.S. small businesses for new product R&D. Hence, these programs provide a unique source of start-up and seed capital for small businesses to develop new innovative product concepts.

The mission of the Wyoming Business Council is to facilitate the economic growth of Wyoming. For more information, please visit the Web site at www.wyomingbusiness.org.

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