A New Zealand-based performance athletic company has developed a fabric they say can actually analyze trauma to the body and beam telemetry data to a control center so medics will know where and how severely a trooper has been hit.
Manufactured by Zephyr Technology Ltd., the Impact SF fabric can also be integrated into composite materials used in vehicle and aircraft manufacturing. Information on an impact either blunt force or ballistic can be transmitted wirelessly to a computer terminal which provides data on an impacts severity, type and direction.
With the U.S. militarys combat strategy growing more distributed, technologies like this could help keep track of injuries on a wider battlefield where medics and corpsmen are spread thin. The technology also seems like it would benefit helicopter crews, who are often exposed to ground fire and could use the extra set of electronic eyes to detect impact points on the fuselage.
(Gouge: RC)
– Christian
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I’ve seen some of this technology demonstrated at CeBit- it’s very cool stuff!
Hmmm. We’ve got some people in our human interface research lab (a mere 750 miles away from Zephyr) doing research into wireless health monitors and the like – this kind of tech might be something good to partner on if they’re looking for new and interesting uses for their smart fabric sensors. Thanks for posting this!