The Challenge
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Army called on Exponent to explore utilizing wearables to help safeguard readiness by answering a variety of questions, such as: What role might wearables play in the future of the military? What are the performance characteristics of digital proximity logging solutions? What user acceptance issues might be anticipated? And what challenges do device type, data capture and security, and implementation pose?
Exponent's MULTIDISCIPLINARY Solution
Exponent conducted a study of a wearable-proximity logging capability at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and on two Navy ships — bridging technology, health sciences, usability, and data science to evaluate the potential for a digital proximity logging capability to support contact tracing.
These studies have led to follow-on projects where Exponent is currently helping the U.S. military to define a common structured environment for wearable design, development, and deployment efforts, as well as establish the standards, best practices, and guidelines for evaluating wearable devices.
Exponent's Impact
Today, wearables connect performance insights back to the individual. Exponent's collective efforts will help the U.S. military take these individualized insights and leverage them at the enterprise level to support protecting and optimizing U.S. military force readiness.
