Utah State University research positively affects the lives of Utah citizens by providing solutions and services that people need, but it also creates marketable technology and products that create new jobs and new revenue for the state. This economic development is another major reason why Utah State University research matters. Here are a few examples of technology commercialization at USU:

Andigen

Conly Hansen

Dept. of Nutrition & Food Sciences

One of USU’s spin-off companies, Andigen, continues to rapidly land new customers and build anaerobic digester facilities. This technology, established by a Utah Center of Excellence, provides for the rapid and efficient transformation of animal waste, allowing greater land productivity and reduced air, ground, and water contamination. Three new facilities have been constructed in the last few months.

Gemini

John Carman

Dept. of Plants, Soils, & Biometeorology

Another USU spin-off, Gemini, has recently been awarded a $2 million federal grant to further develop their seed technology. The process, called apomixis, creates base crops, such as sorghum, wheat, and rice, that clone themselves. It has the potential to significantly increase crop yield, thus lowering domestic feed/food production costs and helping developing countries increase their food supplies.

Center for Advanced Imaging Lidar

Robert Pack

Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering

The Center for Advanced Imaging Lidar (CAIL), one of USU’s Centers of Excellence, has created a technology platform that combines laser distance measurement with digital color imagery. The technology enables users to quickly capture detailed, 3D images of scenes in real-time and in a full-color, digital format. The Center has licensed its technology to a local Utah company, RappidMapper.

The Center for Self-Organizing Intelligent Systems

YangQuan Chen

Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering

CSOIS has developed a highly maneuverable robot capable of efficiently inspecting under vehicles for suspect materials. The robots have been fielded by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan to improve security at check point stations. Use of the ODIS robots has been shown to save lives of our U.S. service men and women.

Center for High Speed Information Processing

Jacob Gunther

Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering

CHIP has partnered with USU’s Design and Development Center to produce a speaker phone prototype utilizing CHIP’s echo cancellation technology. This prototype is being used by a new USU spin-off company to obtain venture capital funding for commercialization of the new product.

PowerPay

Dean Miner

Utah State University Extension

USU’s Extension personnel have developed a debt-reduction software program called PowerPay, which is an easy-to-use educational tool that allows financial advisors to quickly show consumers the impact of power payments on individualized consumer debt situations. Extension has licensed the program to Fannie Mae Corporation for use with their nationwide loan program.

- Anna McEntire