Body Conscious: Pentagon Mapping Wearable Sensor Tech.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

HONOLULU--Wearable sensors of athletes' vital mon in today's sports arenas.

And smartwatches worn by the public can monitor a user's health.

Various Defense Department agencies and labs for the past decade have also been looking at how the emerging field of "wearables" could benefit warfighters in battle zones.

Now, the Pentagon is looking to get a handle on all the programs that are underway and to come up with a roadmap for the technology's future.

Dave Restione, director of the Defense Department's wearables pilot program, in the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, chemical and biological defense division, said the study on all the Defense Department programs came at the behest of his boss, William LaPlante.

"I think the undersecretary noticed last year that there were so many different efforts going on across the department that in a few years we would have soldiers, sailors, airmen, etc. wearing six watches, five chest straps and 10 rings," Restione said during a recent panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association's Pacific Operational Science and Technology conference in Honolulu.

Wearable sensors take many shapes and forms, including the watches and rings that are showing up in the consumer market, patches, the chest straps seen on soccer players, special fabrics intertwined in clothing and sensors that dangle off a subject sniffing the air for chemical or biological agents.

Military wearable sensor programs are generally divided into three categories: medical care--including battlefield triage and diagnosing illnesses ahead of the curve; tracking physical performance; and detecting chemical or biological attacks, he said.

The first category received a lot of attention and research-anddevelopment funding through the CARES Act during the COVID-19 pandemic, while the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has been keenly interested in early warning for chem-bio attacks, he noted.

As for monitoring vital signs, a body emits about 12 basic indicators that can be picked up by minimally invasive sensors. The myriad programs from different communities--all looking at the benefits of each of the 12 categories--was another reason LaPlante wanted to consolidate efforts, he said.

For example, body temperature. "There [were] a whole bunch of programs looking at minimizing heat strain or identifying heat strain or excess heat," Restione said.

Similarly, there were several ongoing programs...