ProWorks Corporation President is Recognized on Aircraft Safety Patent

ProWorks Corporation announced today that ProWorks President Gary Prothero and senior developer Tim Romanowski have been issued a patent (#7,075,457) entitled “Energy Index for Aircraft Maneuvers” by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This patent was awarded to a team contracted by the U.S. government for its invention of a leading-edge analysis method and system for identifying anomalous aircraft takeoff and landing approach paths. The technology developed as a result of this invention allows the airline industry to better monitor airline flights and reduce the number of accidents.

“This patent represents ProWorks’ commitment to developing top-quality, innovative software in the field of data analysis and data mining,” said Gary Prothero, ProWorks President. “Currently, ProWorks team members are listed on three patents related to aviation safety analysis and we are continuing to work with NASA to develop improved airlines safety systems utilizing data analysis.”

This invention provides a new system for monitoring the potential and kinetic energy of ascending and descending aircraft, and determining if energy levels are within normal ranges. Landing accidents often begin as unstable approaches with energy levels outside of the normal range. The system described by the patent has been found to detect up to three times as many unstable take-offs and landing as the previous method.

The resulting information from this system can be used in post-flight quality assurance analysis or can be installed as part of an aircraft computer system to alert pilots in real-time of a potentially dangerous situation.

ProWorks Corporation is a privately help software company based in Corvallis, Oregon. ProWorks specializes in the development of custom software solutions focusing on data visualization, data analysis and data mining. ProWorks has developed data analysis software for use in safety applications, production quality assurance and customer relationship management (CRM). Additional information about ProWorks is available at www.proworks.com.