Personal Area Network for Warfighter Physiological Status Monitoring (WPSM)

We describe an effort to design and implement a reliable, secure, medium-bandwidth wireless personal area network (WPAN) that supports routine, continuous ambulatory physiological status monitoring of physically active warfighters. This proposal primarily addresses the development of a Warfighter Physiological Monitoring System, or WPSM, wireless sensor PAN. The WPAN supports the WPSM mission of continuous physiological data acquisition and real-time health, performance, and injury classification. Enabled by the WPAN, the WPSM comprises a light-weight, robust, self-contained body-worn, or "wearable," system for monitoring such physiological parameters as heat, hydration, fatigue, and injury, Further, the WPAN enables the WPSM to provide early-warning indicators of exposure to biological/chemical weapons and pathogens. Finally, the WPAN enables the WPSM to enhance individual performance, improve planning and team-level situational awareness, and improve combat casualty care. The WPAN would be useful in general commercial environments, where team members collaborate and cooperate to accomplish a task. Furthermore, the WPAN would be useful in hazardous environments, where safety workers must operate to aid others in peril.