Pulsar Informatics

Office of Naval Research

Round-the-clock navy operations involve many fatigue stressors such as overtime, night work, chronic sleep restriction, and jetlag. Left unchecked fatigue stressors may contribute to excessive fatigue. When people become fatigued they have trouble paying attention, they think more slowly, make more errors, and become forgetful, and may even fall asleep on the job. Modern Navy operations require sailors to perform a variety of complex tasks that require sustained attention, quick thinking, and problem solving. This is an environment where mistakes are punishing and can lead to serious injuries or compromise the mission.

Pulsar Informatics is working with the Office of Naval Research to develop technology-based fatigue risk management solutions to help reduce sailor fatigue to prevent operational errors. We are contributing to a fatigue-based scheduling system that will help to reduce sailor fatigue. As part of the development process, our state-of-the-art PVT, invented by Dr. David F. Dinges (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine), is being used to identify when sailors are at risk of having fatigue-related lapses in their ability to pay attention. This is critical information because scientific research has demonstrated that there are large differences in how each individual responds to fatigue stressors. The fatigue-based scheduling system will be based on our proprietary platform. This approach uses biomathematical fatigue models to estimate present and future fatigue levels for each individual sailor. This information is integrated into the scheduling system to generate schedules that are fatigue-optimized.

The views, opinions and/or findings on the website are those of Pulsar Informatics and should not be construed as an official United States Government position, policy or decision.

PVT Self-Test on ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is the single most expensive object ever assembled by humans, costing over 100 billion dollars to develop. ISS orbits Earth at an altitude of 190 nautical miles at speeds exceeding 17,000 miles per hour—completing 1 full orbit of Earth every 90 minutes. ISS has had a continuous human presence since October 31st 2000. Currently, six astronauts and cosmonauts live and work on ISS in six month increments. Space operations involve intense physical and cognitive workload with fatigue stressors such as overtime, night work, chronic sleep restriction and frequent shifts in sleeping schedules (a lot like jet lag). These conditions contribute to fatigue. Left unmitigated fatigue can result in dangerous operational errors that can threaten the safety of the astronauts and damage the space station.

Pulsar is contributing to efforts to mitigate the risks associated with fatigue by developing fatigue management tools based on a proprietary platform for astronauts. Currently our (zero up-mass) PVT software is deployed on the ISS station support computer network enabling astronauts to take the PVT to objectively measure deficits from fatigue stressors common in space operations. The astronauts receive valuable feedback that lets them know when they are off-nominal so that they can effectively interact with NASA flight surgeons to develop and implement fatigue countermeasures.

The views, opinions and/or findings on the website are those of Pulsar Informatics and should not be construed as an official United States Government position, policy or decision.

Fatigue Risk Management in Commercial Trucking

Individual differences in vulnerability to fatigue stressors such as overtime, night work, and chronic sleep restriction are a substantial problem the commercial trucking industry. Pulsar is teaming up with Schneider National to evaluate technologies that can monitor driver alertness and vehicle performance to predict and avoid unsafe driving conditions. With over 12,300 trucks on the road and 12,780 drivers, Schneider National is among the largest motor carriers in the U.S. and has one of the best safety records in the industry. Schneider is always looking into new and creative ways to leverage technology to improve safety and performance. Pulsar is developing tools that will assist drivers and dispatchers with safer more biologically compatible driving schedules. The platform will be used in a pilot program at Schneider National that is being conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach and to quantify improvements in driver safety that result from following fatigue-optimized driving schedules.

The views, opinions and/or findings on the website are those of Pulsar Informatics and should not be construed as an official United States Government position, policy or decision.