Wearable Physiological Sensing Enabled Life Vest to Improve Mass Casualty at Sea Survivability
Abstract
We plan to integrate sensors into a life vest to provide physiological monitoring capability to Sailors in mass casualty at sea scenarios. The project involves three aims: (1) Integrating sensors and electronics based on ballistocardiography (BCG) into an existing life vest used by Sailors; (2) Developing algorithms for automatically extracting heart rate and respiration rate (and the variability in both) from the measured signals; and (3) Developing models for advancing the fundamental capability of extracting features of interest from wearable BCG signals measured from persons floating in water. Upon completion of this work, we anticipate having created a wearable life vest system with multi-dimensional cardiovascular sensing capability, together with algorithms for extracting this data in the presence of motion artifact and positional shifts of the user. We will also have physics and physiology informed models for extracting key features from these signals that relate to volume status and peripheral resistance to address vasoconstriction, hypovolemia, and rapid vasodilation following removal from cold water. The system will not only be able to determine automatically if the person wearing the life vest is alive through basic vitals, but will ultimately be able to assist in triage support by providing automatic assessments of the physiological status of the user (e.g., blood volume status, cardiac output). A future phase could explore collaborating with physiologists at USARIEM to conduct testing in relevant populations during immersion with gold standardmeasures to compare against the BCG measurements provided by the life vest. Approved for Public Release.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 11, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312793
Entities
People
- Ömer İnan
Organizations
- Georgia Tech Research Corporation
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy