Special operators to deploy wearable to keep tabs on vitals, help warn about chemical threats

WASHINGTON — By the end of the year some American special operations forces (SOF) will begin fielding new wearable tech designed to keep a real-time eye on their vitals as well as integrate with systems designed to warn command posts should the operator be exposed to dangerous gases or chemicals, according to an official with the SOF office dedicated to hazardous materials.

“We’ve been able to integrate with some of those sensors that warfighters are able to carry around and do that chemical sensing,” Steve Carrig, the product lead for strategic acquisitions at the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense’s (JPEO-CBRND) SOF office, told Breaking Defense in a recent interview. “So you’re not only using the the physiological market signs that you’re detecting, you know, heat, stress, fatigue, etc, but then you’re combining it with that environmental monitor as a separate data stream to really inform the subject matter experts that are there in a tactical environment to say, ‘I’ve got this sensor over here going off with this individual and their heart rates spiked. We’ve got to pay attention.’”

The device, which is currently in the prototyping stages and being developed by LifeLens Technologies, is part of what the Army calls the Wearable All-hazard Remote-monitoring Program (WARP), led by the JPEO-CBRND. It’s the “first DOD-led physiological monitoring device to be fielded to the joint force,” the Army said in a release last month.

The device is made up of a small node packed with 25 tiny monitors that can be attached anywhere on the body with an adhesive, but usually is attached to the chest, Carrig explained. It also includes a “gateway,” which is a fob-sized device that generates “distributed sensor fusion” along with other computing capabilities.

Carrig said that data from the device can also connect with MRI Global’s data visualization tools that combine the different data streams into a piece of software called a tactical awareness kit. The kit creates an interface that allows different end users and subject matter experts to see all of the data the LifeLens device is gathering into a wholistic picture which allows the end-user to operate “more efficiently,” he said.

The CBRN teams saw a need for such a product after the DoD conducted a pilot on wearables with the goal of better understanding warfighter’s vitals, Carrig said. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, which exacerbated the need of understanding signs of physiological stressors, so the SOF community put out a requirement a few years later to learn more. 

“The pandemic, the Covid-19 response, really highlighted that there’s a gap in understanding warfighter health across multiple environments,” Carrig said. “SOCOM [Special Operations Command] kind of always being [the] first to adopt, narrowed that gap into two things: monitoring warfighter health in a tactical environment and then collating that information with multiple environmental sensor streams, sensor data that can measure things like oxygen in the air or hazardous material.” 

Under a “Rapid Acquisition Effort” in January 2024, Carrig’s team began experimenting with a smorgasbord of wearables from rings, to watches, to bands, but ultimately went with LifeLen’s device given the comfortability and convenience of it. 

“You may have the most amount of information you could ever possibly have on a wearable, but if an individual is not going to wear it for comfort reasons, then then you’re kind of at a loss,” Carrig said. After several iterations of market research and user feedback it “really narrowed” his team into acquiring the LifeLens form factor, he said. “It really came down to, hands down over and over again, this device and this form factor. The guys would put it on and forget they were wearing it.” 

Regarding the ring option, Carrig said most warfighters “don’t even wear wedding bands when they’re in a tactical environment, because they’re concerned about it getting caught on something.” He added that with watches or bands, the problem is that the protective equipment warfighters often wear in hazardous environments covers the digital face of such devices or constricts the device from being able to gather the important data. 

“We tried everything from shirts that had ECGs kind of sewn in, to in-ear devices, arm straps, kind of the whole spectrum of different form factors. Universally, the guys said, ‘This is the only one that I couldn’t tell that I had on.’ And it turns out that it gave us the best data, with the most potential for additional capabilities down the road,” he added. 

In terms of what comes next for the LifeLens device, Carrig said it is on schedule to begin fielding at the end of this calendar year, but he declined to disclose the scale of which it will be deployed. But he did say with the Rapid Acquisition Effort that was provided last year, they’ve been able to make strides rather quickly. 

“If we’re going to fail, let’s fail early, fail fast, and understand what the impacts are and where we can iterate from that,” Carrig said. “So the rapid acquisition piece is really, really trying to do that, just to do the acquisition fast with that mentality, that modality, to say, ‘What can we learn if we try something and doesn’t stick, or if it does stick, where can we go from there?’”