Bridge Sensor Invention Marketed with Help from University of Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - One good idea. That's what every aspiring entrepreneur is looking for. One University of Maryland alumnus may have found his idea. Perhaps you've driven right over it without even knowing.

Mehdi Kalantari's company, Resensys, is testing a bridge sensor that's smaller than a credit card. It's basically a small sticker that measures load, temperature, vibration, and movements like shifting.

"If anything happens that poses a structural issue, the pattern is gonna be way different," says Kalantari as he shows a computer generated graph that demonstrates the health of the bridge.

He says the sensors might have been prevented the 2007 collapse on Interstate 35 in Minneapolis. 13 people died and 145 were injured.

Bridges don't just collapse out of the blue. There are warning signs that come hours, weeks, months in advance.

But you have to look for these red flags. The sensors are powered by just a little sunlight. If there's no light they can also run off radio frequency left over from things like cell phone calls.

The sensors talk to a box that sends data to a server connected to the internet.

Kalantari got his company started with help from the University of Maryland's Technology Enterprise Institute. Dean Chang is the director.

"Mehdi came to us about three years ago with this ingenuous idea but he didn't know how he was going to bring it to market by himself," said Chang.

Now the state of Maryland is allowing him to test the sensors at a spot along the beltway near New Hampshire Avenue.

He hopes this stretch of road is just the start of the journey.

LINKS:
Resensys LLC
http://www.resensys.com/

University of Maryland Technology Start-Up Boot Camp
http://www.mtech.umd.edu/