US Navy Is Designing A Smart Bra To Track Fighter Pilots’ Vitals On Flights

The US Navy is developing biosensing undergarments that track pilots’ health and look out for early signs of trouble in mid-air.

Since bras are close to the chest, they’re a natural fit for monitoring heart health. The Navy, in collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit, is considering installing built-in sensors into them to assess breathing, heart rate, and acceleration.

To support extended use spanning flights and outside activities, a focus will be placed on its comfort.

The hope is that the bra will be able to diagnose early symptoms before they become a medical emergency. The Navy has seen an unprecedented rise in “physiological episodes”—often manifesting as spikes in heart rate and shortness of breath—since 2017, so the smart undergarments may provide some answers as to why they keep occurring.

The proposed design features a data recorder in the band, where a chest-strap heart rate sensor will also be, according to an illustration shared by Dr Bethany Shivers, a branch head at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, during the recent quarterly meeting of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. The slide showing what the bra could look like is published on Navy Times.

The force tapped on Honeywell to design a biosensing material that acts as an electrocardiogram, respiration monitor and motion detector.

Further, the fabric used on the bra can detect how effective its wearer is performing anti-G straining maneuvers, an aviation exercise often likened to giving birth or straining on the toilet. The technique helps train pilots’ tolerance of G-forces and prevent a loss of consciousness from the acceleration of gravity on the body, a condition known as G-LOC.

Amie Blade, a spokesperson for Naval Air Systems Command, notes that the Navy doubled down on designing a proper bra to not just create a targeted, skin-tight garment that can accurately read women’s heart health but to also better serve female aircrew.

The bra is being envisioned as part of a “multi-sensor suite” that can record full-body readings. A biosensing undershirt is also underway.

Early iterations of the bra and undershirt have already been tested on humans in test aircraft, altitude chambers, and centrifuges.

[via Navy Times, cover photo 23253970 © Aviahuismanphotography | Dreamstime.com]