Active Heating System for Diving Gloves

Divers performing deep submersion operations are often exposed to extreme cold conditions resulting in cold stress. Cold stress impairs diver performance, shortens dive duration, and creates an unnecessary health risk to divers. These issues are exacerbated at the extremities of the human body such as the hands and feet. In many cases divers perform tasks with their hands which require dexterity to manipulate tools and instruments, while cold conditions have an obvious affect on performance. A Heated Diving Glove System (HDGS) is proposed here to address this issue. The proposed HDGS will circulate 35C warm water through tubes sown into the top of diving gloves; thereby heating the back of the divers hand without hindering dexterity. Until now, active heating systems have been impractical due to power requirements and reliability. Through a current SBIR program with NAVSEA, Rini Technologies, Inc. (RTI) has developed a breakthrough active Free Diver Heating System (FDHS) that utilizes miniature heat pump cycle technology. The FDHS is an extremely power efficient heat pump design that regulates water temperature circulating through a diver’s tube suit. This effort will leverage the FDHS to supply warm water to the proposed Heated Diving Glove System.