Photo courtesy of Ward Aquafarms in North Falmouth, MA

Congratulations to four Massachusetts companies that received grants from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to support the development of innovative technology for aquaculture, commercial and recreational fisheries, weather prediction, earth and ocean observations and modeling. In total, NOAA awarded $3.1 million in grants to 21 small businesses from 14 states.

The Massachusetts companies are listed below in the categories for which they received grants:

Aquaculture
Ward Aquafarms, LLC, North Falmouth, Massachusetts, $149,600, for a shellfish grading system and integrated data management platform

Recreational and Commercial Fisheries
CVision AI, Inc., Medford, Massachusetts, $149,720, for automated fish fillet identification

Next-generation NOAA platforms
Charles River Analytics Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, $149,989, for semi-autonomous capabilities to operate unmanned teams

Next-generation observation and modeling system
Aerodyne Research, Inc., Billerica, Massachusetts, $150,000, for automated monitoring of volatile organic chemicals with a compact gas chromatography-proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer

In December 2019, NOAA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program issued a call for applications for Phase I funding in topic areas including aquaculture; recreational and commercial fisheries, weather service improvement and evolution; next-generation NOAA observing platforms; and next-generation observation and modeling systems.

For more information visit: NOAA’s SBIR Program and projects and Abstracts for the 2020 awards.