The US military is creating a new class of biosensors that could create weapons that sense if soldiers are stressed and know what they might need to fight better. The groundbreaking programme, which according to the report is not far from creating genetically engineered soldiers, could massively improve humans’ fighting ability.
Earlier this year the AirForce successfully tested a helmet that monitors brain activity knows if the pilot is feeling stressed or panicked.
By 2020, Navy SEALS and Army Rangers could be wearing an exoskeleton that protects them when shooting down high-value targets.
These biosensor weapons could understand more about the people who are using them and what is happening to their bodies at a molecular level when they fight.
They could detect small changes in how alert, stressed or healthy the wearer is, according to the report by Defense One.
Weapons could then be made to suit specific individuals based on data about how they interact with their environment.
‘We want to set up a living laboratory where we can actually pervasively sense people, continuously, for a long period of time’, Justin Brooks, a scientist at the Army Research Lab told Defense One.
‘The goal is to do our best to quantify the person, the environment, and how the person is behaving in the environment.’
This might help them engineer conditions that dramatically improve a fighter’s performance.
According to the report, the US Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy and other special forces are looking to improve troops’ performance by looking at their bodies at a genetic level.
Over the past two years the military has bought more than $2 million (£1.6 million) worth in biomedical tracking devices.
One research project is using a laptop-camera lens to find out if a person’s haemoglobin is oxygenated.
This can then be used to work out a person’s heart rate.
This allows the team to better understand the individual mental and physical strengths of each individual.
Using this technology military officials could have a much better understanding of what mission to give what soldier.
For example, individuals who enjoy risk-taking are better suited for dangerous missions.
This same individual might be poorly suited to other aspects of military work.
‘I want my system to be able to rely on, say a great memory, poor math capability, and a great spatial capability’, said Kaleb McDowell, lead of the Centre for Adaptive Soldier Technologies.
‘I want the system to be able to say, ‘This person’s really creative. How do I tap into that imagination when doing this dull task?’, he said.
Daily Mail
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