Progress 09/01/20 to 04/30/21
Outputs
Target Audience:This product targets the institutional and restaurant food processing and service industry. The restaurant industry market was mature before theCOVID-19 pandemic hit. Now the restaurant industry needs to adapt to current safety/environmental protocols in the hope of returning to previous sales volume. Some market facts from the 2019 Restaurant Industry Factbook of The National Restaurant Association include: • Restaurant sales in 2019 were $863 billion • 4% of 2019 US GDP comes from the restaurant industry. • 12.6% of the American family budget is spent on food, and 43% of that goes to restaurants • 16.9 million restaurant employees were expected by 2029. • 33% of Americans got their first job experience in a restaurant In addition to market size, it is important to understand that the restaurant industry has a high propensity to adopt new technologies, particularly those that can reduce costs, increase revenues, or increase efficiency: • 95% of restaurant owners observed an increase in their business efficiency by embedding technology in their process • 73% of guests believe that technology adds more to their dining experience • 80% of restaurants are utilizing various types of technologies to aid them in running their business more efficiently (online reservations, ordering, inventory, and analytics) Market drivers for CSI-D are a combination of anticipated enhanced regulation, reputation protection, and customer reassurance. Post COVID-19, restaurants will need to convince customers that their food service environment is safe to continue to grow revenue. Educational food services will need to convince parents, state and local authorities, staff, and students that their environments are safe. Restaurant chains are already experimenting with new self-service order methods, restaurant layouts, sanitation protocols, and enabling technologies. There is a high probability restaurant and institutional food service will adopt technologies that can reliably address COVID-19 as well as bacterial and viral infection threats, and that can be highlighted to stakeholders to increase confidence. Changes/Problems:We encountered several problems during design and prototyping, these include optical and electrical issues. We had a problem with EMI noise generated by LED drivers during LED flashing that interfered with SOM board operation and disrupted normal imaging and data transfer operation. We had to developed shielding methods for boards, wires, and connectors to overcome the EMI issue. With respect to optical issues, we have encountered problems with our fused silica optical window internal reflections and optical filtering artifacts. The fused silica window had antireflection coating but still reflects enough illumination light leakage from multiple reflections and through our optical filters even though they have >OD4 blocking. To get around this we are considering adding additional filtering, but our primary solution is to replace the optical window with a perforated metal plate with apertures in front of LEDs and cameras. This also significantly reduce the cost of the device (the optical glass costs about $500) and provide additional robustness by avoiding front glass breakage. The other issue we encountered is due to the wide-angle view of one of the camera lenses which creates a shadowing effect at the image periphery due to the more oblique angle of incidence. We have two solutions for this, one is to use a lens with smaller field of view and the other is to digitally mask the image periphery during display. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Commercialization Successes: USDA NIFA SBIR Phase I funding has helped us to secure additional funding to further develop the commercialization of the CSI-D technology. After securing additional private investment, we have selected and contracted ComDel Innovation (https://comdelinnovation.com/ , Wahpeton, ND) as a contract manufacturer for our assembly of the CSI-D system. We have begun the production of commercial beta prototypes for laboratory and field testing and pilot studies. We anticipate having up to 30 beta prototypes of the CSI-D system by the end of May 2021. We are planning to deploy up to five CSI-D beta units in the pilot studies during this SBIR Phase II project. We expect to sell or lease up to 20 CSI-D beta units in 2021 to universities, government laboratories, and early adopters. We will keep five units for backups and emergency replacements. We have begun implementing a quality system that meets FDA 21 CFR 820 and ISO13485 requirements. We are implementing an electronic quality management system using Qualio (https://www.qualio.com/) and we are in the process of transferring all paper-based SOPs and forms into the electronic system. We have been updating our financial model for potential investors and have built a due diligence repository of financial documents and business plans necessary for venture capital and family office investors. We have revised our website and marketing materials. We will be using this to approach potential customers, strategic partners, investors and to expand awareness of the future potential of our solutions for other industries. We have been working on our public relations strategy and have had a number of articles appear in the newspapers and online highlighting our collaborative work with the University of North Dakota. Based on the results from Phase I, SafetySpect has approached multiple food processing businesses and commercial kitchen facilities regarding pilot studies. We have received support letters from five of these, reflecting their interest in the CSI-D technology and their willingness to be our first customers upon the success of pilot studies in their facilities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We are drafting one journal publication with USDA-ARS scientists and UND researchers describing CSI-D+ technology and novel features. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During Phase I, SafetySpect developed contamination, sanitation inspection, and disinfection (CSI-D) system and brought the hardware and software maturity to TRL 6-7, where we can demonstrate an actual system prototype in an operational environment. The CSI-D system is a fast, convenient, and easy-to-use handheld system. The CSI-D solution includes contamination identification and immediate remediation of potential threats (bacteria, virus, and fungus) using UVC light disinfection, and documenting this process to provide traceable evidence of disinfection. We aim to provide evidence for follow-on investigations, such as tracing cross-contamination and tracking sanitation, in addition to training cleaning crews, and assessing and improving processes and sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs). In Phase I, SafetySpect promised to develop a prototype for the detection of saliva and respiratory droplets on surfaces and validate the imaging and UVC disinfection capabilities of the system. We also promised to complete an optical safety analysis and to incorporate safety features such as UV safety gear requirements. Not only, have we achieved the targeted milestones, but we also accomplished further development of the system, software, and commercialization milestones beyond the original project scope which will be described below. We have completed the optical design, mechanical design, heat management, electrical design for illumination and data processing and built two CSI-D minimum viable product which can be used in field pilot studies. We have developed the firmware for the system on a module board that controls illumination and image capture and incorporated an Android smartphone as a smart display and secondary processing system. The smartphone also provides network connectivity to a cloud server which hosts a management dashboard for task management and data storage and display. Further accomplishments beyond original scope: Based on user discovery we determined that it was essential to provide an inspection tool that not only detects saliva and respiratory droplets for COVID-19 response, but also detects other organic residues such as fecal matter, and bacterial contamination. Because of this our prototypes include both 275 nm LEDs for saliva detection and germicidal features, and 405 nm LEDs for other organic residues and bacteria. We also integrated two cameras and two optically filtered imaging paths to collect multiple fluorescence emission wavelengths. We completed the illumination system design to ensure adequate illumination uniformity and intensity at desired working distance (between 5 to 8 inches) for fluorescence detection and for effective disinfection within 2-5 seconds. We have tested effectiveness of bacterial and viral disinfection in laboratory environment at the University of North Dakota. We have characterized killing percentage based on multiple UVC dosages (changing LED power, distance, and time) for theStreptococcus pneumoniaebacteria and influenzas H1N1 virus models. Further accomplishments beyond original scope, we have tested UVC effectiveness on Aspergillus fumigatus spores. We are preparing a publication based on the germicidal effectiveness results and contamination detection results on multiple organic residues and saliva.
Publications
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