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Track physiological data to safeguard your personnel and save lives.
Military personnel are up against risks of all kinds, whether a dismounted soldier, pilot or royal marine. On top of risking their lives, they can fall victim to heat injury from working in hot climates, fatigue from long hours and even hearing loss from overexposure to excessive noise during training exercises and deployment. Ultimately, heat stress can lead to personnel being medically evacuated from the field and even downgraded at great expense. This can be prevented.
The only way to reliably monitor the impact of physiological strain on military personnel is by deploying technology that actively monitors their physiological risk factors. Despite solutions already existing, the likes of wrist-worn or skin-based devices are unable to provide an accurate analysis of core body temperature (CBT). We use the latest innovations in sensor technology and machine learning algorithms to provide real-time predictions of the onset of key physiological markers. Coupled with an advanced geolocation capability, we offer an unrivalled and comprehensive solution to protect personnel.
In a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit, through the Army Contracting Command of the US Army, Bodytrak was put to the test with US Navy’s fixed wing pilots. The trial was able to demonstrate how wearable physiological monitoring technology could be used to reduce the number of physiological incidents during or after a flight that pose a significant health and safety threat to personnel and contribute to aircrew deaths and aircraft losses. Bodytrak was tested against a control device while volunteers exercised with varying levels of exertion in a controlled environmental chamber wearing a pilot flight suit and either a pair of overhead headphones or a full-size pilot helmet. Heart rate data from Bodytrak showed a mean absolute error of 2.87 beats per minute compared to the control ECG device, and CBT data from Bodytrak showed a mean absolute error of 0.18°C compared to a gastro-intestinal pill, demonstrating that the Bodytrak solution is a very effective way of measuring heart rate and CBT.
In 9 years (2003 – 2012) more than £27.5 million has been spent on aeromedical evacuations in Defence as a result of heat related injuries. Bodytrak provides a return on investment through the prevention of costly injuries, in turn preventing medical costs, aeromedical evacuations, loss of productivity and costly compensation claims. Bodytrak also combines many essential capabilities into a single system, providing a more integrated cost-effective solution.
Contracted by the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (supplying specialist science & technology services to the UK’s Ministry of Defence and wider government) and the Defense Innovation Unit (through the Army Contracting Command of the US Army), Bodytrak is a fit-for-purpose ruggedised solution designed for harsh conditions and environments. It combines physiological monitoring with hearing protection and noise metering to prevent heat injury and hearing damage.
Bodytrak can be configured to operate in an offline mode, only notifying the wearer, or with cellular, Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth radios enabled to provide telemetry to the cloud or an air-gapped/on-premise server infrastructure. Both the hardware and platform can be easily integrated with other systems via software APIs, as part of a larger system.
Bodytrak helps you provide a duty of care to keep your military personnel safe, especially in training where heat injury is entirely preventable. Performance based metrics and automated thresholds enable the output of teams to be maximised and heat acclimated ready for deployment.
Tracking health and safety no longer needs to be a one-size-fits-all approach, limited by universal methods such as wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT). Bodytrak enables automated thresholds to be set for each user on a personalised basis, using automated machine learning techniques. This helps to ensure intervention is only provided when necessary, and not too late.
The Bodytrak device has been designed to withstand normal wear and tear under tough working environments, but it should not be submerged in water.
The Bodytrak solutions focuses on capturing the following data;
Bodytrak captures real-time physiological data using in-ear sensors, analysed by machine learning (ML) on the device and in the cloud to provide critical insights. Due to its close proximity to the hypothalamus, the temperature control centre of the body, and since the eardrum receives its blood supply from the carotid artery, the ear is an excellent body site to measure core body temperature and heart rate accurately.
Heart rate data from Bodytrak shows a mean absolute error of 2.87 beats per minute compared to a control ECG device, and CBT data from Bodytrak shows a mean absolute error of 0.18°C compared to a gastro-intestinal pill. Our fatigue scores have been validated during trials where mental fatigue, physical fatigue or drowsiness was induced to ensure precise data. This is a strong indication of the effectiveness of our solution.
