New navy uniform could monitor soldier injured in nuke attack
Baku, May 2 (AZERTAC). The Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center is always trying to make fatigues used combat more intuitive and cutting edge to allow a greater level of safety to the men and women who risk their life and limb to keep arms dealerships in profit. After a series of failed initiatives, the center is all set to test a new kind of smart fatigue that will not only record and relay a wounded soldier’s vital stats, his GPS location and stats about the extent of his injury to medics and rescue personnel but will also check his blood, urine, sweat and saliva for signs of exposure to explosives, chemicals and nuclear radiation.
Thanks to a bunch of integrated sensors built into fabric, the smart fatigues will be able to determine the extent of a soldier’s injury and transmit the relevant information to the medics while they are on route to the downed soldier’s exact location. This will not only enhance the chances of saving a soldier’s life and save the medics a lot of work and time while they rescue and treat an injured soldier.
Currently under development by an initiative called the "Intelligent Clothing for Rapid Response to Aid Wounded Soldiers", the smart fabric may just be the future of combat uniforms since the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has shown keen interest in the development of such fabrics.
Of course, the idea here isn’t to replace medical care with material. It’s to give medics and surgeons a major head start, by offering initial diagnostics that’ll speed up the process. No doubt, that’d be an invaluable aid where soldier survival is concerned: Odds of a military patient living through an injury plummet once a so-called “golden hour” has elapsed. So the quicker treatment can start, the better the likely outcome.
Developing smarter fabrics isn’t an incredibly tall order. In the last five years, commercial ventures have made impressive progress toward lightweight “functional clothing” that can detect everything from an athlete’s vital signs to a diabetic’s blood-sugar level. One group out of Europe even created a fabric that can monitor muscle overload to prevent injury.
But creating sensors as sophisticated as what ONR wants is a tougher challenge. And combining so many sensors into single uniform — vital signs, bullet detection, GPS — is another complicating factor. Not to mention integrating these systems into a fabric that can accomodate body armor and be weighted down with tons of gear. And one that’s durable enough to withstand the rigors of combat and a variety of weather conditions.
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