24-10-2012, 05:35 PM
Warfighter Physiological and Environmental Monitoring: A Study for the U.S. Army Research Institute in Environmental Medicine and the Soldier Systems Center
ABSTRACT
An unprecedented opportunity exists to introduce real-time physiological and environmental monitoring technology into
future US Army dismounted forces for use in both training and combat situations. The motivation is to enhance the
survivability of the individual warfighter and to provide increased situational awareness to both combat medics and
commanders during the course of a mission or field operation. The monitoring technology must be reliable, must be
unobtrusive, and compelling in terms of value to both the lowest-echelon warfighters and their command chain. Realizing
these objectives will require adapting and extending ambulatory medical monitoring technology well beyond the capabilities
of current commercial devices and systems, and will place the US army in a unique position with regard to real-time
physiological status and health monitoring. This report identifies specific technology and system level issues that must be
addressed to realize the objective system and proposes both a near-term and far-term system concept and development
strategy. Technology developments critical to success include covert wireless personal area networking, physiological and
environmental sensors hardened for the dynamic warfighter environment, and real-time data processing and fusion algorithms
to extract the relevant physiological information and overall health status.