Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Aptima’s alarms land $500K NASA deal

By Brendan Lynch

Aptima Inc. has landed almost $500,000 from NASA for work on an alarm system to improve safety on aircraft.

Under the contract, Woburn-based Aptima will perform work based on a proposal entitled, “Alarms: Alerting and Reasoning Management System.” The contract was awarded by NASA’s Aviation Safety Program, which works on improving aircraft safety by studying how aircraft are designed, built, operated and maintained.

Aptima’s Scott Galster is the principal investigator.

Earlier this month, Aptima was subcontracted by BBN Technologies Corp. to work on the development of an “alternative reality game,” intended to train U.S. soldiers for emergency situations.
 
The Joint Forces Command and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, funded the development of the game, which BBN produced under its Helical Training brand. The company said it received two contracts, one from each agency, totaling $750,000.

Aptima, which was founded in 1995, specializes in engineering services. The company also develops software and training systems using computational and quantitative analysis based on social science principles.