Army uniforms with embedded sensors soon could track soldier body’s signals to monitor warfighter health

June 23, 2021
Researchers found that fiber sewed in the armpit of a shirt could determine with 96 percent accuracy the activity of the user while wearing the shirt.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – U.S. Army Researchers have taken the first steps in building fiber-embedded clothing for Army uniforms that works like a fiber computer on the body to collect and communicate a soldier’s physiological, environmental, and location data for near-instant feedback. Army Times reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

23 June 2021 -- Future military uniforms with this technology could power sensors, store and analyze collected data, and transmit that data to outside sources, Army officials say.

The project is part of work done at the Army’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass., and through the Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

MIT doctoral student Gabriel Loke and his fellow researchers two years ago started thinking about how they might pair tiny fibers and microchips with sensors in clothing that could store and transmit digital data from soldier body signals. If researchers could do that, they could far surpass what today’s smart watches track. Clothing on the body covers nearly its entire surface, especially when counting gloves and shoes.

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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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