Development of a Mobile, Miniaturized, Field Deployable Pupillometer to Assess Fitness for Duty

"DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT RESEARCH This project will take the commercially available FIT 2000 pupillometer and make it smaller, lighter, and more resistant to environmental extremes for use by a wider commercial and military population. Prior research has validated the present FITpupillometer as a rapid, noninvasive, self-administered test for sleep deprivation related impairment as well as impairment from drugs and alcohol. This project proposes to redesign the present FIT pupillometer, which is currently restricted to indoor useunder constant light conditions, to achieve a new mobile version that can be used in varying weather and ambient light conditions. Performance variation due to impairment from sleep deprivation and other causes is a very common problem in the military as well as in commercial operations. With this simple and fast technology, management can evaluate the readiness of troops oremployees and therefore assess the risk of accidents in safety sensitive tasks versus continuing operations. Phase I will complete the overall design of the "mobile" FIT including both the technical design and packaging concept. In addition, Phase I will design and execute a study to determine the effect of ambient light differences on Saccadic Velocity, Pupil Diameter, Constriction Latency and Constriction Amplitude. Phase II will be to implement the design into a full development project and build 6 prototypes to use for mea