Kairos Research recently kicked off a new project in support of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL’s) Airman Readiness Medical Research (ARMR) portfolio. The new effort involves analyzing diverse human performance datasets collected by different research groups within the Airman Biosciences Division (RHB) of AFRL’s Airman Systems Directorate, which is a key component of the 711th Human Performance Wing. According to AFRL’s website, the goal of RHB is to “discover, demonstrate, and transition knowledge products and technology solutions from the full spectrum of bioscience, biotechnology and aerospace medicine, to enable, enhance, sustain, and restore the health and performance of the multi-domain Airman.”
“We are proud of our world-class data analytics capability,” said Kairos CEO Brandon (Brad) Minnery, and we’re pleased to apply those skills to problems of critical importance to the Air Force. We’re especially excited by the wide variety of operational domains and data types that we’ll have the opportunity to model.” According to Dr. Josh Fiechter, Kairos Data Scientist and principal investigator for the project, this includes physiological, cognitive, and behavioral data – as well as task performance data. “Irrespective of the particular dataset,” added Dr. Fiechter, “our goal is to extract useful insights from the data and, ideally, to develop well-validated predictive models that the Air Force can use to improve Airman health and readiness.”
To date, the Kairos team has assisted AFRL in analyzing training data from aeromedical evacuation exercises, Airman sleep quality data, and pilot physiological data collected under real-world flight conditions. More recently, the team has begun working with AFRL partners to design a study aimed at predicting Airman health using data collected with commercial wearable sensors.
