THE PARTNER: Nearshore Logistics, LLC 

THE PROBLEM: When ships offload heavy equipment and supplies on ocean shores without fixed ports, the process often takes several days as ships avoid getting bogged down in the soft, wet sand in the littoral zone, the area that is underwater only during high tide. Many military ships address this issue by using the U.S. Army’s Trident Pier, a roadway connecting the vessel to the beach. However, the pier is made of thousands of pounds of complex steel parts that take dozens of people weeks to assemble. Commercially available alternatives are hard to anchor, have a propensity to float, and are subject to scouring, when the sand and supporting material washes away. 

THE SOLUTION: SUBMAT (Submersible Matting System) is like an air mattress that is filled with beach sand, pumped through lightweight, portable trash pumps. The result is a more-than-2,000 square foot surface that remains stable – on sandy, rocky, and coral beaches as well as steep- and shallow-sloped shorelines – amid waves as high as 13 feet and is durable enough to support heavy battle tanks and other military vehicles during offloading. SUBMAT is cost-effective and portable, made of inexpensive, readily available materials and designed to fold to fit in a compact space. Requiring only the mat, the trash pump and beach sand, SUBMAT can be installed by eight soldiers in less than a day. To disassemble, the sand is emptied from the mat back onto the beach, leaving no environmental footprint.  

THE TECH TRANSFER MECHANISM: Under an Other Transaction (OT) agreement, a team of engineers in the Department of Defense (DoD) Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) Geotechnical and Structures Lab (GSL) and the Coastal Hydraulics Lab (CHL) began development with Shavers-Whittle Construction, LLC (SWC). The OT agreement included milestones that triggered rounds of funding, creating flexibility to work quickly or slow down when necessary. The follow-on Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) allowed SWC to produce more prototypes for testing and other purposes. SWC established the spin-off Nearshore Logistics, LLC to continue R&D while bringing SUBMAT to a strategic market under a non-exclusive patent license that was fully executed in 2023. A cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA), also completed in 2023, allows Nearshore to continue advancing this technology and exploring non-military uses.  

THE TECH TRANSFER EXCELLENCE: This transfer benefited from exceptional collaboration between ERDC engineers and SWC and the supportive design of the OT and follow-on agreements. The OT’s tiered structure encouraged success while managing expenditure. The agreement also enabled collaborators to develop the project scope and adjust the contract as needed, creating crucial flexibility in the challenging early development stages. The follow-on BPA facilitated a speedy agreement execution, accelerating the commercialization timeframe. Leveraging the momentum from the OT agreement, the invention disclosure was reported in July 2022, a provisional patent application was filed in December 2022 and, within 16 months, ERDC had both a CRADA and patent license executed with Nearshore.  

THE OUTCOMES: SUBMAT addresses a problem that has plagued logistics operations for decades, making offloading faster, easier and more efficient to save time, resources and possibly lives. For the military, this creates a significant advantage in wartime, peacekeeping and relief operations; SUBMAT has been successfully demonstrated at military installations in Florida, Virginia and the Philippines. For non-military applications, the technology could be used for temporary boat ramps, piers and emergency access roadways, and its production creates jobs and contributes to the growth of the U.S. economy.