Quantifying Human Readiness: Wearable Tech in Aviation Safety with Mike LeNeave

Shared Military Backgrounds

• ✈️ Amos and Mike LeNeave, a retired US Army Chief Warrant Officer, bonded over their extensive military careers, including service in aircraft maintenance and aviation operations.
• 🇰🇷🇺🇸 Both shared experiences from deployments and postings in places like Korea and Hawaii, highlighting the camaraderie and shared challenges within the military.

Evolution of Aviation Technology

• 🚁 Early aviation technology, like the O58 Delta helicopter's "glass cockpit," was advanced for its time but often lacked integration and user-centric design, leading to workarounds like using Gatorade bottles for target marking.
• 🚀 Transitions to more advanced aircraft, such as the MH47 Chinook, represented significant leaps in technology, akin to moving into a "spaceship" with vastly improved systems.
• ⚠️ Despite technological advancements in aircraft, a critical gap existed in monitoring the human performance aspect, which is a primary contributor to accidents.

The Human Factor in Safety

• 📊 The traditional focus in aviation safety is on the machine, with extensive monitoring devices for aircraft systems, while human error accounts for a significant portion of accidents.
• 💡 Mike LeNeave's personal experiences, including a near-accident due to fatigue and an incident involving an improperly wired air data computer, underscored the need to quantify human readiness.
• 🚨 The lack of objective data for factors like fatigue in accident investigations means critical insights can be missed, making it difficult to definitively identify root causes.

Pison's Technology for Readiness

• 🔬 Pison has developed a surface-based EMG device that measures electrical signals at the wrist to quantify reaction time and cognitive state.
• ⚡ This technology allows for individualizing readiness scores, providing commanders with objective data to assess if personnel are operating at their normal capacity.
• 📈 The device can predict future readiness levels and, when used historically, can help accident investigators determine if fatigue or other human factors played a role.
• 😴 Pison's technology also incorporates precise sleep metrics and heart rate variability, combining physiological and cognitive data for a more comprehensive understanding of an individual's state.

Operationalizing Readiness Measurement

• ⏱️ Pison's approach involves a quick, on-body cognitive test (a 3-minute PVT) taken at the start and end of a duty day to establish baseline and measure degradation.
• 🤝 The company is partnering with Timex to develop hardware for the US military, focusing on