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Physiological episodes happen to humans, not aircraft. First and foremost, our primary concern is the safety and well-being of our aviators and our maintainers. So, if we can understand the environment that we make them operate in and then influence that environment to give them more margin, we'll be in a much better place.
This is so important because the human is the key ingredient in our weapons systems. So, I think we historically have been very effective in delivering the systems that surround the aviator, but what we really need to focus on now is building systems that are optimized to enhance the capability of our humans, our aviators.
We need to look at the pilots as almost elite athletes of how do we make their performance better, and how do we make sure that they can, while they're in this demanding environment, respond appropriately and make sure they're always at the top of the performance that we need from them.
So we can put all kinds of monitors on what is going on the jet, but we really don't understand right now, during flight, what is going on in the human themselves.
A physiological episode is an adverse physical reaction to the environment in which we put an air crew, and that environment can include the cabin, specifically pressurization of the cabin, or it could include the breathing gas that we supply to the aviator.
It could be any kind of symptoms, physiological symptoms that the person, the pilot is experiencing. Anything from tingling in their fingers to "I feel like I can't breathe," to feelings of nausea. There's a lot of different symptoms that can be identified as physiological events.
The real goal here is to find a physiological monitoring and alerting system that can predict and detect a physiological episode so that the air crew can take corrective action before they become impaired or incapacitated. Currently there is nothing out there, and that's why we really need industry to come in, see this capability gap, and formulate an innovative and collaborative solution, really.
And what makes it more challenging for aviators is that we have to do that in an environment in which they're under acceleration or Gs, and under pressurization changes of altitude. So, partnering with industry is extremely important to look at the sensors that are out there and see what we might be able to adapt to get us to mitigated solutions for physiological episodes.
We have developed the Aircrews Systems master plan for physiological monitoring, which is a strategic and pretty aggressive fielding of a physiological monitor within 24 months.
Because it is a three-phased process. At least in my mind, and that is first be able to monitor the human. I mean, what data can we get right now that can really just monitor the human? So, we can get that data and take it and analyze it to try to take a root cause correction approach to it. With that, the next step is really to predict. How can we further that algorithm development to predict before the aircrew are going to have a physiological episode. Then the third step would be to alert them. So, whatever modality we can think of, visually, vibration, et cetera. How can we alert the aircrew so that they can take corrective action before they are impaired or incapacitated?
This is important for NAVAIR because what we have to do is we have to be able to build a system that allows the aviator to know what their condition is, right? So, how is the human performing in a particular environment? So, this is going to give us that capability.
As the aviators walk to their aircraft, I want them to have 100% confidence that they're going to be operating in an environment that is safe. And not only do I want to make it safe, I want to make it so they can optimize their performance in that cockpit. So, that's why we're spending so much time and making sure we're getting this right.
| Date Taken: | 11.16.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 01.17.2019 16:03 |
| Category: | Video Productions |
| Video ID: | 655059 |
| VIRIN: | 181116-N-MK473-124 |
| Filename: | DOD_106376898 |
| Length: | 00:04:06 |
| Language: | Arabic |
| Location: | PATUXENT RIVER, MARYLAND, US |
| Downloads: | 79 |
| High-Res. Downloads: | 79 |
This work, Physiological Episodes, by Mikel Lauren Proulx, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
