NASA Awards OPTIMUS Corporation Small Business Innovative Research Grant --SBIR--.

Business Editors

SILVER SPRING, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 23, 2004

Grant Funds Development of System Designed to Improve Aerospace Safety by More Accurately Identifying Human Factors Contributing to Mishaps

OPTIMUS Corporation, a leader in public safety technology, today announced that OPTIMUS - with support from Richard Blomberg, President of Dunlap and Associates and former Chair of the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, along with the City College of New York (CCNY) - has been awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant by NASA to develop a system for improving aerospace safety. Specifically, the grant funds the development of a comprehensive data mining system to identify subtle human factors underlying aerospace mishaps.

Aerospace operations are characterized by the collection of massive amounts of information and some of the data is specifically focused on human factors. When a mishap occurs, it is necessary to identify contributing human factors, and trace them back to the root cause. This forms the basis for effective interventions to prevent a recurrence of the mishap. At present, this process involves trained analysts interacting with each data source individually and then synthesizing the results into a coherent picture. Because each source must be dealt with separately, the task can be daunting, and, as a result, some analyses are not as comprehensive as possible. In addition, due to this complexity the analyses for major accidents address the full range of data while those for less severe events tend to only address a subset. However, a less severe accident may be a warning of an unrecognized process flaw that unless remedied will eventually cause a catastrophic accident.

A primary objective of this research is to allow the same comprehensive human factors analysis to bear on all mishaps by developing an easy to use data mining technique that can integrate information from a wide range of sources into one common analysis.

This SBIR grant is particularly relevant for OPTIMUS, which was officially launched in 1992 when the Company was awarded an SBIR grant to develop a wireless inspection system for NASA that is still used for rocket launches today, and which was nominated for the 2002 NASA Innovation Award.

"This NASA SBIR award is extremely exciting for OPTIMUS as a company with such strong NASA roots and commitment to public safety," according to Eric Adolphe, President and CEO of OPTIMUS Corporation. "With this technology, NASA will be able to more easily and completely, gather and analyze aerospace incident data to automate the determination of human factor issues contributing to an unsafe operational environment. This will help ensure that today's incidents prevent tomorrow's tragedies."

About OPTIMUS Corporation

OPTIMUS Corporation enhances public safety and quality of life through innovative, customer driven solutions. OPTIMUS products and services increase efficiency, reduce transaction costs and help minimize risk - enabling governments and organizations to significantly improve service delivery. Since 1992, OPTIMUS has been working to strengthen our nation's vital infrastructure, with award winning products and services in mission critical environments for numerous federal and civilian agencies, and many state and local governments. OPTIMUS is highly committed to quality in every aspect of its business, evidenced by its multiple industry recognitions, including the 2003 National Capital Business Ethics Award. OPTIMUS delivers proven results through lasting technology partnerships founded on integrity. For more information, visit www.optimuscorp.com.