Pre-Solicitation Notice: BAA Development and Demonstration of Mine Safety and Health Technology

CDC Pre-Solicitation Notice 2022 Broad Agency Announcement: Development and Demonstration of Mine Safety and Health Technology The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act) permanently established the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research under the direction of an Associate Director, within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. One purpose of this office is to enhance the development of new technology and technological applications, and to expedite the commercial availability and implementation of such technology in mining environments. The MINER Act grants the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research the authority to (1) award competitive contracts and grants to institutions and private entities to encourage the development and manufacture of mine safety equipment and (2) award contracts to education institutions or private laboratories for the performance of product testing or related work with respect to new mine technology or equipment. This announcement is an opportunity for the award of contracts for enhancing safety in mines. The primary goal of the MINER Act technology mandate is to improve/increase the use of technology in mines to improve mineworker safety and health, and the intent of this broad agency announcement is to support enabling activities such as technology identification, validation, demonstration, adaptation, and/or commercialization. The Office of Mine Safety and Health Research of NIOSH is soliciting concept papers to conduct research, exploratory development, testing, or evaluations of new technologies to improve mine safety, or to adapt technologies from other industries for application in mining environments. The primary interest of this broad agency announcement is to promote the modification or final development of practical technologies or systems that can be adopted by the mining community in a short period of time. Under this specific solicitation, proposals to conduct theoretical or basic research will not be considered. NIOSH strongly encourages proposals that include collaboration with mining industry partners who understand the reality of the mining environment and can provide insight into mine design requirements and potential commercialization of the technology. The following examples are presented to further illustrate appropriate submissions under this solicitation beyond the more general guidance listed previously. 1. A safety and/or health technology that is currently in a prototype stage, which will require funding for final development and adaptation to the mining environment. This could include modification of prototypes to account for operation in the challenging underground coal environment, modification to meet permissibility requirements, and/or demonstration of the technology at actual mine sites. 2. A safety and/or health technology that is currently being used in another industry and requires modification to be adapted for mining applications. This could include system redesign, modification to meet permissibility requirements, in-mine testing to establish the efficacy of the technology, and/or demonstration of the technology at mine sites. 3. Analysis of candidate technologies to establish their potential to improve safety and/or health, and/or analyses of barriers to technology application or means of overcoming such barriers. 4. A safety and/or health technology that is fully developed and available for use but is not being adopted by the industry for reasons that require further analysis. This could include developing an initial operational capability by installing the technology in one or more mines for evaluation and/or market analysis to determine the reasons the technology is not being adopted and the changes that would be necessary to make it acceptable to the industry. 5. Analysis of safety and health information in the surveillance area or other work that involves the extraction useful data for identifying the future technology needs of the mining industry. Fatality and injury data continue to highlight the need to develop new or improve existing technologies or adapt technologies from other industries to address safety and health issues in surface, and underground mines related to the coal, metal, non-metal, and stone, sand, and gravel mining sectors. NIOSH has typically provided a number of topical areas of importance to guide responders in addressing its highest priorities; this solicitation continues that practice as described below. However, NIOSH strongly encourages responders to propose solutions to other health and safety issues that are responsive to our guidelines; these proposals are evaluated under the same criteria as submittals under the focus area and receive equal consideration for funding. Twenty-six percent of the contracts funded under this program have come from this category of submittals and, in some fiscal years, have made up fifty to seventy percent of the funded proposals. 1. Coal Dust and/or Silica Since 2017, each annual BAA solicitation has included at least one identified focus area related to coal and/or silica dust. In total 12 contracts have resulted. The focus areas and number of contracts issued are: 2017: A smaller, lighter, more ergonomic, and more economical version of the current continuous personal dust monitor for respirable coal dust A similar mass-based, real-time dust monitoring unit to detect crystalline silica dust 2018: Miniaturized CPDM with silica measurement capability (3 contracts were issued) 2019: Investigations related to the NAS report - Monitoring and Sampling Approaches to Assess Underground Coal Mine Dust Exposures (4 contracts were issued) 2020 Non-Regulatory Personal Measurement of Coal Dust and/or Silica (3 contracts were issued) 2021 Additional Investigations related to the NAS report - Monitoring and Sampling Approaches to Assess Underground Coal Mine Dust Exposures Recommendation 2: Exposure studies Recommendation 6: CPDM filter media (2 contracts were issued) NIOSH still considers mine worker exposure to dust, including silica, a critical area for further research and development activity, and is soliciting proposals related to dust characterization, measurement, exposure assessment, instrumentation, control, etc. The NAS report - Monitoring and Sampling Approaches to Assess Underground Coal Mine Dust Exposures, available on the NAS website for free download, summarizes the issues that NIOSH is trying to address, although proposals addressing silica or mine dust exposure in the mining industry sectors outside of coal are also encouraged. 2. Regulatory Review for Automation Unlike most other countries, U.S. mining practices are guided by regulations that are often very prescriptive. While automation has the potential to save lives and improve health, the required changes to mine operations may not be compatible with these prescribed requirements. Automation implies that hardwires and local machine control are replaced with computer networks and machine control that is provided by operators who are away from the hazardous areas and sometimes miles away from the machines. The U.S. mining law requires that introduction of new standards and practices provide the miner the same level of protection as existing standards. Given the extent of the changes to mining practices needed for automation, the potential regulatory implications of this consideration are profound. The regulatory implications could introduce additional research requirements that are unique to U.S. mining and therefore of great interest to NIOSH. Automation in U.S. mines has been limited to certain pieces of equipment in a piecemeal approach (e.g., longwall equipment, surface drilling, remote control loaders and dozers). Larger scale implementation of autonomous machines is under consideration here, but mines in other countries, such as Australia, are further along. The changes needed for mining practices should be discernible by examination of those operations. However, what is needed and yet has no clear path for accomplishment, is a determination of where future implementation of automation in mining may conflict with U.S. regulations and what might be done about it. These conflicts may require elimination, replacement, or new interpretation of the regulations. While NIOSH interests are to identify and understand the research that will be needed to support these regulatory changes, NIOSH needs a better understanding of future plans of U.S. mine operators and regulatory implications. Therefore, NIOSH welcomes proposals by mining operators, equipment manufacturers, or others who understand those plans in depth and can identify: 1) the potential conflicts with U.S. regulations, 2) the needed regulatory changes or considerations, and 3) the necessary health and safety research to support or realize these changes. 3. Simulation and Modeling for Automation System Design and Implementation for Health and Safety Autonomous and semi-autonomous mining equipment has been developed for use in mining operations and is being implemented in mines world-wide, but with slower adoption in the United States. As the demand for automated equipment use in mining systems builds here, there are concerns about safe implementation of operator-less machines and how they interact with human-operated equipment, workers on foot, and existing facility infrastructure. Most mines conduct preliminary evaluations of autonomous equipment and associated systems in a limited and controlled setting to determine feasibility. Pilot projects can be expensive and may not simulate a larger fleet implementation accurately. There are questions as to how these preliminary evaluations consider the health and safety risks involved in equipment automation, and how these risks are mitigated. The sensors currently used on equipment have capabilities to record enormous amounts and types of data regarding existing equipment movement and conditions that can be used for diagnostic capabilities. This additional data, previously non-existent decades ago, is now available and has the potential to allow a thorough assessment of the risks to workers. As mines begin to deploy more self-diagnostic and automated equipment, this data can potentially be used to understand risks to workers, machines, and environments before deployment decisions are made. With the availability of this extensive sensor data and other interventional data coupled with the availability of computational intelligence, this data can be analyzed to understand how existing systems will behave in the autonomous transition. Using the computational intelligence, the output should better inform and allow more efficient building of simulation models that will allow additional, along with improved, assessment of interventions meant to lower the risk of human and automation system interaction. NIOSH is interested to learn what data variables (from human-operated and autonomous equipment) most affect the risk of injury in the interaction between humans and machines. Specifically, what variables have the most effect on overall health and safety system performance. With computational intelligence feeding the development of simulation modeling tools or any other such tools, it will be of great interest to NIOSH to determine specific methods or tools that are used to evaluate system design, implementation, and operation of autonomous equipment in the mines operational environment. NIOSH interest is especially focused on the use of these tools to identify the health and safety risks associated with autonomous equipment or systems and their operations. Methodologies used to mitigate the identified health and safety risks of automation are also of significant interest. Cataloging these existing tools and ascertaining the - pros and - cons of each system is needed, including classifying the health and safety risks and mitigation for equipment or system automation. NIOSH is also interested in a demonstration of each of these tool's effectiveness, along with methods for validating the tool's success. Demonstration could include an illustrative case study of the application's ability to identify and assess risks that should be considered before and during design, implementation, and operation of autonomous mining equipment or systems and explain the mitigation of these risks. Response Date: This announcement will remain open until January 14, 2022. Concept papers will be accepted from the release of the solicitation through January 14, 2022, 3:00PM ET. CONCEPT PAPERS SUBMITTED AFTER THE DEADLINE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Full proposals for concept papers that are found to be technically acceptable will be due within 30 days after notification by the Contracting Officer. Inquiries and Additional Information: Information and specific questions of a technical business nature only will be accepted via email sent to Contracting Specialist Stephanie Reid, at the following address: sreid@cdc.gov. Include your name and email address on the message. Responses to the email questions will be handled on a first-come basis and generally will be answered within 10 business days. PHONE CALLS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Additional information is also available online at the following address: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/researchprogram/fundingops.html