La Armada de los EE. UU. est\u00e1 probando un nuevo sistema de monitoreo de fatiga en el portaaviones USS Gerald R. Ford utilizando el Oura Ring, un rastreador de salud port\u00e1til. Este dispositivo mide diversos indicadores fisiol\u00f3gicos, lo que ayuda a evaluar la calidad del sue\u00f1o y los niveles de fatiga de la tripulaci\u00f3n. La fatiga se ha relacionado con desastres navales anteriores, como las colisiones del USS Fitzgerald y el USS John S. McCain, donde la falta de sue\u00f1o fue un factor importante. Para garantizar la seguridad, seleccionaron el Oura Ring, que no emite se\u00f1ales de larga distancia.<\/p>\n
The crew of the futuristic carrier USS\u00a0Gerald R. Ford<\/em>\u00a0are about to test out an equally futuristic personnel-monitoring device. On their next deployment, members of the crew will have an Oura Ring personal health tracker – a small titanium ring that contains sensors for heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen level and acceleration. Among other things, this data allows Oura to assess sleep quality and fatigue, which are\u00a0the main targets of a new Navy study.<\/p>\n Fatigue is a constant theme in maritime casualty reports, and the U.S. Navy’s two biggest losses of the past decade both had lack of sleep as a contributing factor. In the early hours of June 17, 2017, the destroyer USS\u00a0Fitzgerald<\/em>\u00a0collided with the container ship\u00a0ACX Crystal,\u00a0<\/em>tearing a hole measuring about 12 feet by 17 feet in\u00a0Fitzgerald’s<\/em>\u00a0hull. Seven sailors were killed, and the survivors saved their ship only through heroic efforts at damage control. Barely more than two months later, destroyer USS\u00a0John S. McCain\u00a0<\/em>struck the tanker\u00a0Alnic MC<\/em>\u00a0near Singapore, killing 10 of\u00a0McCain’s\u00a0<\/em>sailors.<\/p>\n Investigators found that the crews of\u00a0McCain<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Fitzgerald<\/em>\u00a0had had too little time for rest. Aboard Fitzgerald, the watch officers had “little to no sleep” before the night of the casualty because of in-port events, an after-action report found. On\u00a0McCain<\/em>, records showed that the 14 crewmembers on the bridge during the collision had an average of less than 5 hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours, and one relevant individual had had no sleep at all.<\/p>\n Eight years later, Navy researchers are still working to develop better tools to help commands address fatigue. The health-data study aboard USS\u00a0Gerald R. Ford\u00a0<\/em>is an attempt to gather more information on how a long deployment affects the crew, researchers told Navy Times.<\/p>\n Operational security informed the Navy’s selection of hardware and software: after the Strava fiasco of 2018, in which a cloud-based personal fitness app disclosed the GPS locations of military personnel around the world, the Navy selected a product that would be more discreet. Oura Ring lacks a long-distance RF signature, researchers told Navy Times.<\/p>\n The ultimate objective is to give crewmembers a way to watch their own readiness, and at the same time, to give commanding officers detailed data on how their subordinates are affected by fatigue. \u201c[We’re] helping leadership on these ships understand how the mission is impacting the sleep and the recovery of their sailors, especially as they go on these deployments that involve a lot of stress,\u201d Dr. Rachel Markwald of the Naval Health Research Center told Navy Times.<\/p>\n Participating crewmembers will get to keep their own Oura Ring if they wear it during more than three-quarters of the deployment.<\/p>\n