Grants / Department of Defense / Engineer Research and Development Center

W81EWF-22-SOI-0032: Automated and Robotic Inspection of Flood Control Systems

Closed Closed August 22, 2022 Opportunity W81EWF-22-SOI-0032 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: ERDC Broad Agency Announcement (W912HZ26S0001). Status: Closes January 1, 2027 (55 days left). It is in our archive of Engineer Research and Development Center notices from 2022.

• Award ceiling$2.5 million
• Total funding$7.5 million
• Expected awards1
• Cost sharingNot required
• Funding typeCooperative Agreement

Key dates

Who can apply

This opportunity was open to the applicants described in the notice.

• Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)

This opportunity is restricted to non-federal partners of the Gulf Coast Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit (CESU).

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past Basic, Applied, and Advanced Research in Science and Engineering awards averaged $1.1 million; this notice allows up to $2.5 million per award.
• Most of the program's money (69% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

Background: Levees are an integral part of the U.S. infrastructure system that prevent flooding of numerous communities, industries, and ecosystems throughout the U.S. Currently, there are over 24,000 miles of levees recorded in the National Levee Database with significantly more levees left to inventory. Unfortunately, engineering records and instrumentation data for these levee systems is usually quite limited. As a result, inspections and assessments of levees form the primary basis for conducting risk assessments of these structures. Levee inspections include tasks aimed at identifying potential failure modes. Erosion and overtopping are critical failure modes for levees. Slope stability is rarely a driving failure mode. Erosion is not necessarily observable in the absence of a flooding event, during which the presence of water obscures the observability of failure indicators, complicating levee inspection processes. In addition to identifying defects and failures, inspection of levees and structures serve to create necessary information for condition and risk assessments of levee systems. The types and densities of vegetation, location of discontinuities, damage, and geometry are useful for the assessments and must be gathered via inspection, which requires significant cost and time. Inspection of culverts and other structures along levees, locations of potential critical failure modes, are more able to identify indicators of developing failure modes but are equally time consuming and costly. It is also not always known where culverts are inside of levee systems, which can be a major issue as concentrated leak erosion typically occurs along these soil-structure interfaces. Culverts from 3” to 6’ diameter are frequently inspected using robotic instruments with cameras. The videos from these culvert inspections are reviewed by human visual inspection at great time and cost. Methods are needed to gather information for assessments of levees, structures, and culverts, as well as methods to identify indicators of future failures which are rapid and affordable. Brief Description of Anticipated Work: The purpose of this research is to implement technologies for automating inspection methods for levees and flood control structures using robotic platforms and artificial intelligence techniques to increase accuracy, reduce time and cost, and to increase safety of performing necessary data gathering and interpretation activities.

Category: Science and Technology and other Research and Development.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, W912HZ26S0001, which is open now.

The notice on Grants.gov keeps its full text and attachments, which is useful for planning a resubmission.