Wearable device helps predict heat illness during intense training

A wearable device the Army has developed over the past five years and is in use by both Army and Marine Corps training units could help prevent, heat illnesses among troops.

The device is called the Heat Illness Prevention System, or HIPS. Mark Buller, a research physiologist with the Thermal and Mountain Division of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine.

Buller shared recent developments and updates for the device’s use among soldiers and Marines at the Fort Moore, Georgia’s annual HEAT Forum on Wednesday.

The system includes a chest strap sensor, smartphone application and algorithms. Buller and his team began work collecting data and monitoring troop’s heart rate, skin temperature and other measures in 2019, but was put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.