The Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is looking for a small business to design and develop a uniform that includes sensors woven into the fabric that can measure the health of a soldier, locate a wound, or detect a soldier's exposure to biological or chemical weapons.
The project, called Intelligent Clothing for Rapid Response to Aid Wounded Soldiers, is part of the DTRA's small business innovation research (SBIR) program, which allows high-tech companies with less than 500 employees to create technology for the military, according to a solicitation posted online.
The DoD is looking for a small business to design an intelligent soldier uniform that can monitor overall health and identify if and where a soldier has been wounded, among other capabilities.
The uniform would act as a series of intelligent medical devices and even as a GPS that identifies a soldier's location to hasten the delivery of aid in the field. Currently, a wounded soldier, or one of his cohorts, calls for human medics to provide assistance in the case of injury or exposure to biological weapons, according to DTRA. Intelligent clothing, however, could reduce the amount of time it takes to get help.
"In a situation where a soldier has been hit with either a single bullet or shrapnel from an explosion, or has been exposed to CBRNE (Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear and Explosive) within their surrounding environment, it is critical to quickly evaluate the vital organs that have been impacted and the lifesaving procedures that need to be performed," according to the solicitation.
The design key to the uniform proposed by the DTRA lies in intelligent sensors embedded in the clothing that can perform a range of medically evaluative tasks. These include estimating the depth of penetration of a bullet or shrapnel or its effect on surrounding organs, or identifying a chemical or biological agent in a soldier's blood, saliva, sweat, and even urine, according to the solicitation. The sensors even could find damage done to a soldier's cellular tissue or organs after such as exposure.
The idea to provide sensors in soldiers' clothing to help evaluate their health electronically is not new. The Army tried to do something similar in 2004, with a program called the Future Force Warrior. The goal was to create soldier clothing to transmit physical vital signs back to base, but the program was ultimately cancelled.
More recently, the Army put out a solicitation through its own SBIR program to find a company to design software to create soldier clothing with electronic sensors for communication. Like DTRA's idea, the Army's Design Tool for Electronic Textile Clothing Systems also envisions a wearable network of sensors built into a military uniform, but for communications rather than to evaluate the status of a soldier's health.
It seems to me that the technology to support the application is pretty accessible. I'm actually surprised uniforms like this aren't a staple on the battlefield. Any sense as to why it's lagged behind? I would think there would be dozens of small businesses all over this opportunity to land a meaty government contract.
One answer is power. The uniform becomes just another device requiring power to run. A significant percentage of the load a soldier must carry is spare batteries. The army is currently on a push to get all the devices a soldier now carries to use a common battery size.
Assume an adhoc network of minimally intelligent sensors embedded in fabric, scattered around the entire body. With some rudimentary spatial framework analysis resulting in a three-dimensional "body image", with ancillary temperature and perhaps pressure and acoustic measurements, it should be possible to map out everything happening to the uniform wearer -- from loose backpack straps and untied shoelaces down to point-of-impact for projectile wounds and, worst case, impact damage and loss of limbs, etc.
In a perfect world, that adhoc network would be able to make use of (and share) spare processing power to perform augmented intelligence tasks, acting for example as a full-body haptic interface between the wearer and a "smart phone" or equivalent, or, depending on line-of-sight and optical interface options, interfacing/coordinating between multiple individuals. I like the possibility of acoustic point-of-discharge analysis for incoming fire, too, given the virtual-sensor-array size benefit of correlating input from multiple uniforms across an area. Sharing processor power gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "All right, let's huddle up"...
It would seem that another DN post going into detail about the benefits of ultracapacitors versus batteries (re wind-farm generators) might be pertinent to the power requirements (given that you do NOT want to have to monkey with replacing sensor battery elements).
@flare0one: The application in the textile is easy but putting it in a functional military uniform is the challenge.
Worldwide, uniforms have evolved to meet the needs of military personnel. Some things can't be moved or removed because it interferes with the new technology. The uniforms have to maintain their function under a wide range of conditions-hot, dry, wet, cold, etc.
I'm assuming that each sensor point would be some type of encapsulated "lump" which could reasonably be attached (encapsulated?) after the uniform itself has been fabricated. Most sensors could conceivably be general purpose, with a subset designed to be positioned adjacent to key physiological elements (heart, trachea, carotid, diaphragm, etc) and another subset (if specialization is necessary) designed to be gridded in primary haptic I/O points (gloves, forearms, thighs, chest, back, hips, etc). The majority of the volume of each "lump" would likely be made up of the encapsulant, some type of transducer (piezo? etc), the network transceiver mechanism, and the ultracapacitor energy storage element.
But the intent would be for these devices to be attached where there is space available, not to preempt priority of any existing uniform functionality (other than maybe augmenting buttons, snaps, closures, elastics (for power generation), etc). The actual encapsulated "lump" could feasibly survive environmental excursions that would exceed the limits of the wearer (and the rest of the uniform).
In the sense that design is always an iterative process, with "what we COULD do" influencing "where are we going with this", some kind of evolving specification would emerge, hopefully soon enough to prevent self-destructive "feature creep".
You're right, TJ, the uniform would need a power source. But that could be taken care of by using a device that generates power. The military already has devices that attach to the boot and charge batteries through simple movement such as walking.
Rob, I know of the boot mechanism you describe (saw it featured either here or at Machine Design).
In Robert Heinlein's words: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. The boot mechanism uses a trooper's own energy. That means in addition to walking, the trooper puts some effort into moving the boot mechanism. A little extra resistance.
I don't see that particular mechanism going very far. It's too external (susceptable to damage). Anything that would sap energy from me (extra resistance to movement) is NOT going to be greeted with enthusiasm.
Think about it. Would you want to wear something that resists your motion after climbing Afghan mountains all day?
The soldiers of WWII frequently jettisoned their gas masks as soon as they could, calling it extra, unnecessary weight.
The better means of powering this clothing would be the cloth that uses temperature differential (outer layer to inner layer) to generate electricity (it was featured here a month or two ago). Combine that cloth with this technology would be a VERY smart thing.
The article says that the smart uniform could "reduce the amount of time it takes to get help." Would the uniform have the ability to autonomously call for help?
Easy to hypothesize a context where having your uniform "call home" might equate to "painting a target on your position". But if you consider the benefit to a "Man Down!" of being able to pinpoint the person's location (via a low-signal-strength short-range signal)so no need to search through debris and rubble, yes, you get faster aid. And with many types of wounds, the primary immediate need is to apply pressure to the wound: the UNIFORM could handle that. Assuming some combination of contractile and inflatable fabric, the uniform could form a localized pressure pad and significantly reduce the loss of blood from a trunk wound. The same functionality would enable an intelligent "tourniquet" for wounds to extremities. These various capabilities, in conjunction with the audio capability of the distributed sensors, also enable a virtual "blood pressure cuff".
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