USAF developing wearable sweat sensors for realtime blood test results

A research unit of the United States Air Force (USAF) is investigating the military applications of sweat sensors mounted on a printed electronic plaster.

The skin-mounted label would analyse sweat for biological markers to give results which currently require blood to be drawn and examined in a laboratory.

No more needles
A simple plaster with embedded plastic electronic sensors could allow biomonitoring in the warzone or civilian applications– Source: USAF Research Lab Speaking to USA Today, Josh Hagan, of the USAF's 711th Human Performance Wing explains: 'We are trying to do a couple of things. We are trying to eliminate giant blood draw. We are also trying to get the answers a lot quicker to the people who need them than they are getting them now. We are talking minutes or in real time.'

Immediate diagnosis will benefit the military both in assessing the condition of casualties during transport and evacuation, and allow monitoring of servicemen involved in critical tasks - like piloting a lengthy bombing mission. Integrating the results into a real-time integrated system, would allow medics to prepare medical equipment and allow the pilot to manage their intake of fluids, or stimulants like amphetamines which US pilot take to maintain alertness.

Fitness and healthcare
Similar sweat sensors are also set to be deployed for the wearable electronics fitness market. In Europe French technology centre the Laboratoire d'électronique des technologies de l'information (LETI) hope to fit such sensors to the next generation of the wearable electronic D-Shirt which they help develop and launch earlier this year.

The presence of chemical markers for fatigue or other bodily changes in sweat as well as blood is accepted. But Hagan notes that it remains to be determined how long after a change these will manifest in a person's sweat.

Ultimately it is the US military's goal to incorporate an array of biosensors to help create an individual Human Centric Sensor System for each individual soldier. To aid this goal it has channelled funds to private sector plastic electronics innovators like Soligie and American Semiconductor.

By John Nelson, follow John on Google+