Military Diver Health
Monitoring of fatigue on long transits and operations
BlueZone Group is proud to partner with the University of Wollongong, Western Sydney University, and Vyom Tech to develop a prototype system to assess military diver health. This work will have strong synergies with our supply of Diver Propulsion Vehicles for long underwater transits. A DPV with navigation capability will enhance the probability of mission success and monitoring the impact of fatigue on a military diver will be an important issue.
Military divers provide specialist diving capability involving the use of self-contained mixed gas equipment for duties that are characterised by long endurance, often at high intensities in the dark, and under time pressure in contested areas.
There is potentially a requirement for divers to passively utilise underwater propulsion systems over a prolonged duration, resulting in challenges in maintaining core body and skin temperatures. These challenges are not limited to insertion using propulsion systems. Any dive mission profile that limits the physical movement of a diver will reduce the metabolic heat generated by the diver.
There may also be an introduction into the subsurface domain, as is occurring in the land domain, of situational awareness tools and increased cognitive requirements that may affect the diver’s ability to monitor their own health.
It is envisaged that a physiological monitoring system will allow scientists to undertake subsurface research more efficiently, support training of divers as well as in the test and evaluation of new thermal protection and other equipment.
Monitoring the vital signs of Military Divers (heart rate, core thermal temperature, oxygen blood levels, respiratory rate etc.) has the potential to not only increase diver duration but the ability to ‘protect’ military divers during long duration, low activity mission profiles.
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