Remote physiological monitoring in a Mars Analog field setting

Abstract

The ability to remotely monitor physiological parameters of individuals while working in an extreme environment is useful for promoting health and safety. There is limited evidence of real-time, remote ambulatory physiological monitoring during field science tasks with readily available, Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products. The Zephyr BioHarnessTM was integrated into NASA’s BASALT Mars Analog field deployment for real-time, remote physiological monitoring of extravehicular crew during tasks approximating those that will be performed during planetary exploration (field traverses and sample collection). This project was included in BASALT to assess the feasibility of using COTS physiological monitors to stream live data and develop protocols for real-time health status determination under remote networking conditions in a field geology setting. Physiological monitoring data were transmitted from a field setting to a remote monitoring site at 1 Hz resolution in 23 out of 28 simulated EVAs. Outages were generally attributed to the difficulties of implementing a field network in an environment such as the ones in which BASALT operated, rather than inherent issues with the COTS instrumentation. Results of this study indicate that this application of COTS physiological monitoring is potentially applicable to a range of field research tasks.