Wearable Technology’s New Mission 

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The US Marine Corps has been focusing efforts in human performance augmentation, listing it as a key focus area headed into 2020. It is looking for new wearable gear with biosensing technology that can boost human performance and help build a more lethal battlefield force.

A request for information (RFI) posted by the Marine Corps seeks information from industry leaders on various possibilities, from T-shirts, watches, wristbands to chest straps with embedded biosensing technology that can link to and download performance and physiological information to a database. 

The new biosensing tech will afford battlefield commanders information about the “physiological status and readiness” of Marines, according to the RFI. It will also help commanders to “tailor conditioning and operational training in order to minimize injuries and optimize strength building and overall operational performance.”

But with any new tech — especially gear that can track, collect, store and upload data — comes with various operational security, or OPSEC, concerns.

The rapidly evolving market of devices, applications and services with geolocation capabilities presents a significant risk to defense and military operations. In August 2018, the Defense Department banned the use of Fitbits and other fitness tracking devices for troops deployed overseas following social fitness network Strava’s posting of a heat map that revealed the location and details of a number of U.S. bases and military outposts.

Manny Pacheco, a spokesman with Marine Corps Systems Command, told marinecorpstimes.com that there are “OPSEC concerns with any effort” to procure new gear for Marines and that the Corps will look for “ways to mitigate those concerns.” “In this particular case we are just looking at technologies for potential future use and will address the OPSEC issues as they arise.”