Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase II: NICHD
Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation — SBIR Phase II award from Department of Health and Human Services.
Phase II SBIR prototype / development signal
- Phase II is where Department of Health and Human Services funds deeper R&D after feasibility. Incumbents with Phase II history are serious competitors on adjacent topics.
- Use this award as past-performance context and to map customer organizations for STRATFI/TACFI-style transition planning.
- Obligated amount $922,259 is consistent with substantial Phase II-scale effort; compare to related awards from the same agency.
- Topic code NICHD links this award to a solicitation family — search the same topic stem for incumbents and recompete timing.
- Amount
- $922,259
- Agency
- Department of Health and Human Services · National Institutes of Health
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase II
- Topic
- NICHD
- Solicitation
- PA22-177
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- MN
- Period
- 2023-09-18 → 2025-08-31
Description
Project Summary/Abstract Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation (MHS) proposes to develop a child safety seat with a novel intuitive harness tensioning system to improve the rate of proper harnessing of children into child safety seats. Children are harnessed into child safety seats via a 5-point harness with shoulder straps that buckle at the crotch. The entire harness assembly must be properly tensioned to ensure safety. Loose harnesses are a common misuse in child safety seats. Several large studies have observed that only 10% to 20% of children are correctly harnessed into correctly installed seats. Improper use of child restraints substantially reduces their effectiveness and is a major public health concern. The proposed child safety seat will utilize an all mechanical, intuitive system to improve proper use of the child safety seat harness. We hypothesize that a child safety seat that provides an intuitive and easy-to-use harness system will significantly improve the rate of proper child safety seat usage and reduce vehicle crash-related child injuries and deaths. An interdisciplinary team of researchers has been assembled to define, build, and evaluate a prototype system.