SBIR Phase I: Wearable System for Stress Management via Real Time Stress Tracking and Biofeedback

Award ID: 2212935

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is creating a tool for police officers and other service members who are expected to perform their job duties under high stress. This Phase 1 project seeks to develop a technology that creates stress scores and alerts users when they are in red zones for decision making based on physiological monitoring via a wearable sensor unit. The initial target market segment for this technology is the ~$1 billion law enforcement market as there is a high need for tools that can help de-escalate situations and potentially improve the use-of-force decisions. The pain points of acute stress impacting decision-making have been validated in military and professional athletic markets as well. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop a wearable technology that uses skin conductivity to measure stress and alert users via vibrational feedback. This Phase 1 project proposes to: (1) run a pilot study on police officers to collect skin conductance data during scenario training, (2) build machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) models with a high predictive accuracy of poor decision making using this data, (3) determine ideal sensor location and build a custom wearable strap attachment, (4) develop the mobile application to build a data visualization interface for officers and trainers, and (5) test the effectiveness of delivering vibrational feedback during decision making of officers using the prototype. The successful conclusion of Phase 1 may lead to a hardware-software prototype that measures the police officers' emotional stress using a skin conductance signal, then alerts the user via vibrational feedback when they are in a heightened level of stress. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Alastair Monk