Researchers from Michigan State University (MSU) and Wayne State University are applying to the federal Small Business Innovation Research program this year to fund their different approaches to maintaining roads and bridges. Shantanu Chakrabartty, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at MSU, has been working more than seven years on a method of gathering data from wireless sensors on a structure that is subject to weight load, friction and pressure forces, like a bridge or highway. 

Hwai-Chung Wu, associate professor at Wayne State and president of startup Reinforcement Innovations LLC, said his company incorporated last year out of more recent research that is evolving quickly. Testing about 18 months ago showed promising results on concrete columns that use a hybrid composite reinforcement instead of traditional steel reinforcements, he said -- the concrete didn't crack or speckle like steel-reinforced columns often do, and didn't compress as much.