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A Retrofittable Fuel Usage Monitor and Economizer

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Army
Contract: W56HZV-08-C-0280
Agency Tracking Number: O071-E10-4033
Amount: $99,698.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: OSD07-E10
Solicitation Number: 2007.1
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2007
Award Year: 2008
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2008-03-18
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2008-09-18
Small Business Information
1410 Sachem Place Suite 202
Charlottesville, VA 22901
United States
DUNS: 120839477
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Jason Burkholder
 Senior Research Scientist
 (434) 973-1215
 burkholder@bainet.com
Business Contact
 Connie Hoover
Title: General Manager
Phone: (434) 973-1215
Email: barron@bainet.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

Vehicle fuel efficiency is a complex function of many variables, including vehicle condition, vehicle loading, engine condition, terrain, fuel type, and driving style. High fuel costs increase the need to optimize fuel efficiency with respect to as many variables as possible. An affordable, retrofittable intelligent vehicle performance and fuel economy maximization system would have widespread application to military and commercial vehicles. Barron Associates, Inc. and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) propose to develop the Fuel Usage Monitor and Economizer (FUME) - an intelligent, open architecture vehicle performance monitoring and fuel efficiency optimization system. FUME will feature two primary components: (1) vehicle and engine health monitoring and (2) real-time operational guidance to maximize fuel efficiency given the current operating conditions. The vehicle and engine health monitoring component of FUME will build upon an ongoing, related research collaboration between Barron Associates and SwRI. The real-time fuel efficiency optimization component of FUME will combine Barron Associates' online system identification algorithms with fuel property classification technology developed by SwRI. The FUME core intelligent agent will be hardware independent; therefore, the specific instrumentation suite, computing hardware, and user interface may be designed for each unique vehicle class based on space, weight, and budget constraints.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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