Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program by the U.S. Navy/NAVAIR to develop a Passive Occupant Weight Relief (POWR) harness to lift the weight of the pilot’s survival vest and armor carrier off of the torso while operating the aircraft. Aircrew back pain is a significant factor affecting aircrew mission endurance and effectiveness and increasing costs for medical treatment and disability. A Design of Experiments (DOE) will be used to determine ability to balance upward load and aft load created by the harness. The POWR harness will not hinder egress and will not require any additional steps to egress.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program by the U.S. Navy/NAVAIR to address and improve the health risks, discomfort, and pain of military aircrew brought on by whole-body vibration in helicopters. Safe is developing a Passive Anti-Resonance (PAR) vibration isolator that will isolate an entire helicopter crew seat at its floor attachments. The PAR vibration isolator will adjust automatically to limit displacement during inputs near the resonance frequency.

Safe was awarded a program by the U.S. Navy/NAVAIR to produce 530 MH-60S Next Generation Gunner Seat Selectable Profile Energy Absorber (SPEA) production kits and 50 spare SPEA production kits, with tasks including fabrication, assembly, and source inspection.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Air Force/Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to develop a flexible system of powered rollers for cargo aircraft to increase efficiency and reduce airman injury during loading and off-loading of aircraft. The program designed a study demonstrating feasibility of integration of powered rollers onto cargo aircraft and produced initial designs for roller construction and total system architecture.

Safe, Inc. was awarded a Phase II SBIR program from the United States Navy/NAVAIR, to further develop and design Safe’s proposed surface flotation device (raft) for an aviation mishap survivor. The lightweight, pocket-sized raft will be worn or carried on the aircrew without interfering with the aviator’s flight duties. Safe’s proposed design included auto-inflation, a method for easy survivor entry, and effective protection from exposure to cold water. The Phase II included computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling, inflator design revision, optimization through DOE with CO₂ and N₂O, delivery of three inflators, testing, and manufacturing.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Navy to develop/design a single test rig with modular elements that can be reconfigured to address any rotor assembly or component. Safe designed hydraulic actuators that can be moved into different locations and orientations for any combination of centrifugal, bending, and torsion loads. The hydraulic system accommodates differing numbers of actuators and load ranges. The control and data acquisition software also reconfigure to operate one or many actuators at different loads, independently or in unison, while measuring strain and load data.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Army to address and remedy problems with current passive occupant restraint systems in helicopters. These restraint systems do not adequately restrict occupants’ upper torso/head motion during a crash event with a combined forward and vertical acceleration component. Safe will be developing a new passive occupant restraint system to reduce the occupant’s motion during these types of crash events. Safe’s new restraint system is also anticipated to be more intuitive, simpler, and easier to use.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Army to develop a new spall liner for combat vehicles. Safe’s new spall liner design will benefit vehicle occupants by protecting them from the hazardous conditions associated with combat, including head injury. Occupants of ground combat vehicles are at risk of head injury when the vehicle is attacked by an underbody blast and its violent motion causes the head to strike the interior. Occupants are also at risk from spall, fragments of material liberated from the interior wall of the vehicle by shock waves or overmatched threats.

Safe was awarded a Phase I program from the United States Navy to address and remedy several deficiencies with manually-adjusted tethers currently used. Safe is developing designs to improve manual slack monitoring and adjustment, help eliminate hindrance of movement due to nuisance locking; decrease annoyance loads on the occupant; and, correct inconvenient or unrealistic access to the airframe-mounted control points of the systems. Safe’s program utilizes several prototype build phases for hands-on assessment of functionality of the system.

Safe was awarded a Phase I SBIR program from the United States Navy to design a surface flotation device (raft) for an aviation mishap survivor. It will be lightweight and pocket-sized to enable it to be worn or carried on the aircrew without interfering with the aviator’s flight duties. The design includes auto-inflation, a method for easy survivor entry, and provides effective protection from exposure to cold water.