Air Force doing trial run on wearable biosensors

Mumbai: Air Force Marathon runners in Ohio will be having a trial run with wearable biosensors this year. Several Air Force pilots will be wearing electronic patches, which have the ability to get vital information wbout the health of the individual from sweat itself.

According to a report on DefenceTech, the directorate is working with the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to develop the wearable biosensor. It’s part of the Air Force’s Human Performance Augmentation, or HPA, program.

“Augmentation … could take a variety of forms ranging from pharmaceutical countermeasures to adaptive and autonomous systems,” the Lab said in a statement. “HPA requires new sensor devices that do not interfere with warfighter operations and can be integrated with communication and information systems to satisfy broad mission needs.”

Josh Hagen, a Research Lab chemical engineer with the 711th, told the Armed With Science blog that the idea is to create “a dashboard for the human life,” with the data flowing to the board in real time via the biosensor.

Human performance monitoring can be done by measuring heart rate, skin temperature and blood pressure by using biological chemical and molecular data that is obtained from internal and excreted fluids. These fluids include blood, urine, saliva and sweat.