By Jeff Karoub
Small Times Staff Writer
Aug. 8, 2001 — The small technology that measures the speed of the U.S. Navy’s sea-launched torpedoes soon could accurately track the knots of racing yachts.
The Naval Sea Systems (NAVSEA) Command has licensed its technology to Wickford Technologies Inc., a
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| Tony Colutta of the Baltimore City Yacht Association will be among the first to use a MEMS-based sensor that will measure the speed of his 37-foot sloop, above. The device, which goes through the hull under the boat about a quarter of the way back from the bow, replaces a paddlewheel sensor, which protrudes from the surface and can clog, break and create drag. |
The technology, developed at NAVSEA’s Indian Head Naval Surface Warfare Center in Maryland, is part of a growing trend toward the transfer of technology from the military and other federal agencies to the private sector.
Like most small technologies, this application promises to cut costs as well as boost accuracy and efficiency.
The patent-pending device, a differential pressure flow sensor, uses low-cost, batch-fabricated MEMS technology. It is flush-mounted to the vessel’s surface and replaces the protruding paddlewheel sensor beneath a boat’s hull, which could clog, break or cause drag — a potentially big problem in a sport where seconds count.
“In racing, some sailors will pull the boat out of the water to clean out the paddlewheel sensor, or … send a scuba diver down to clean it because they get clogged all the time,” said Cynthia Leahy, Wickford’s president and chief executive officer.
“It’s very important, especially to a racing sailor, to know how fast he’s going.”
The sensor, which will be developed and marketed to instrument package makers, is expected to be in full production by Dec. 1. Wickford is working with Navy engineers on development, and underwater tank tests are planned for later this month at the Navy’s Carderock Division laboratory in Maryland, where America’s Cup’s hulls are tested.
Leahy said members of the Baltimore City Yacht Association will be the first to take the technology for a spin later this summer.
Among the volunteers is Tony Colutta, former commodore of the club, who enters his 37-foot Farr racer-cruiser sloop in about 40 races a year.
He wants to help bring the technology to market, but he also is interested in seeing how it improves upon the paddlewheel sensor.
Colutta said his paddlewheel is susceptible to marine growth, which contributes to false boat-speed readings. That could have contributed to his second-place finish in a recent club race, he said.
“It cost us some distance, and it very well might have cost us (first place),” he said.
Leahy said Wickford will sell the flow sensors to marine equipment suppliers for about $500, but the profits will be shared with Indian Head and Mike Deeds, a researcher at the lab who invented the technology.
The industry-government collaboration and others like it grew out of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, which led the Defense Department and other federal agencies to start looking at ways to transfer their technology to the private sector. As a result, spin-offs and partnerships have flourished in recent years.
Examples include:
* Technology Ventures Corp., founded in 1993 by Martin Marietta to help Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico transfer its technology, has helped create 40 businesses in the Albuquerque area, with nearly $300 million in funding, and create more than 3,000 jobs. It also has helped lure nine venture-capital companies to an area that had none.
* Technology coming out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has created several dozen companies, employing more than 2,000 people in northern California with combined sales of $250 million annually.
State programs have buoyed technology transfer efforts with an eye toward economic development. As part of its Federal Lab Partnership Program, the Maryland Technology Development Corp. awarded Wickford $20,000 for the flow sensor project.
Wickford, which came out of a state-sponsored business incubator, said sharing the profits with the government is a small price to pay, compared to what it gets in return.
“This is the best navy in the world,” Leahy said. “We have to pay a royalty, but we did not have to pay to develop this technology.”
Leahy said Wickford also received support from University of Baltimore’s Center for Technology Commercialization, which scours federal labs, looking for projects with commercial potential.
She said racing boats are not the largest market for the flow sensors, but the quickest to get into because it is the easiest transfer of the torpedo technology.
In a year, Wickford is planning to develop the sensor to measure flow in gas pumps and, a year after that, industrial pipes that carry wastewater, petroleum and other chemicals. In both cases, the sensor is flush-mounted inside the pump or pipe, which means it gets a more accurate read of the flow, reduces clogs and monitors breaks.
The last application for which Wickford has a license is measuring the speed of aircraft. As with the paddlewheel on ships, the pitot tube protrudes from a plane, and can freeze as well as break or clog.
Leahy said breaking into this market will be the toughest because of the strict rules and regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration. But she hopes the company can prove the technology offers safety and accuracy — as well as save time and money — in the long run.
For its part, Indian Head — the longest continuously active weapons facility in the United States — isn’t finished trying to transfer its technology, much of which is the small kind.
At a technology showcase for Washington, D.C.-area businesses earlier this year, the center also presented its work in nanomaterial production and offered tours of its clean room, which it bills as the world’s only such facility that applies MEMS in the field of energetics, or explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics.
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CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Jeff Karoub at [email protected] or call 734-528-6291.