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

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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.