EquivitalTM - Military
The three main usages within the military environment are:
- for monitoring personnel on the front line
- for supporting medic assessment and subsequent evacuation of a casualty.
- during training exercises
Combat is inherently dangerous and presents a high risk of injury, physical trauma, thermal extremes and ballistic impact. Remote physiological monitoring benefits the soldier by increasing the chances of a wounding event being identified; it benefits the medic by providing extra information to enable them better to prioritize and treat casualties; it benefits the commander by providing added awareness of the environment within which his troops are operating.
The sensors multirole nature makes its both cost effective and flexible.
In normal operation the sensor continuously monitors the wearer's status and passes back a summary (partial disclosure mode) via the on-board transmitter to a local node, which forwards the summary to a control centre. The amount of data sent is small and the update frequency can be chosen to match the operational environment. In addition to a basic indication of cardio-respiratory status, information about the soldier's position and activity level is provided.
The Continuum of Care
Following a wounding event the sensor's role can be modified to provide local and remote triage information to a medic. During evacuation and field hospital treatment the device can be switched to provide full physiological waveform disclosure.
Training
The ambulatory capability of the device lends itself to training exercises for both injury prevention and assessment of physiological load.