SHL - Space Apps Challenge

SHL| Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool

Awards & Nominations

SHL has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool

Sleep loss and fatigue may lead to reduced performance and an increased risk to safety during many activities, including spaceflight. Your challenge is to develop an operational sleep shift scheduling tool that provides autonomous customization of a schedule for sleep, exercise, and nutrition to manage fatigue.

Circadia

Summary

Circadia is an intelligent sleep scheduling system, designed to monitor astronauts aboard the International Space Station to inform them of optimal times to sleep, exercise, rest, and eat.The system takes in data measured from astronauts with wearable devices such as a headband and ring, containing sensors measuring variables including movement, light intensity, heart rate, temperature and brain wave activity.Based on these various measurements, the schedule is adjusted to to maintain peak performance for planned activities through the day.Information can also be manually added such as food intake, extra rest, and other tasks that have not been pre scheduled.

How We Addressed This Challenge

We developed an intelligent sleep scheduling system which also incorporates food intake, exercise requirements, and environmental variables.

Our solution is important, in helping to ensure an appropriate circadian rhythm is maintained throughout the day, as this influences the body's cycle of sleep and awake periods.

When people get out of sync with their circadian rhythm that is influenced by their environment, fatigue and other issues begin to set in. Waking up earlier, going to sleep later, changes in metabolism and more.

The system continually processes data received from wearable sensors which are keeping track of metrics such as body movement, temperature, brain activity, heart rate, sound and light intensity. Information such as food intake is obtained either by manually entering into the system or scanning food items when consumed.

This data is processed and adjusts the schedule of sleep, exercise, and food intake to keep crew synchronised to the 24 hour 'mission day' on orbit. Events such as space walks, spacecraft docking and unforseen events that get added to the schedule will shift the sleep, exercise and food intake timings to ensure crew are at an optimal level of performance for each activity and then have the appropriate recovery measures in order to maintain synchronised to the 24 hour rhythm.

Data is provided to the crew via tablet screens within their living quarters and other points throughout the space station. With plans to have this integrated into a watch interface.

We hope to achieve better astronaut performance and reduced fatigue in orbit, through implementing an appropriate schedule of sleep and countermeasures to maintain a circadian rhythm that fits within the 24 hour cycle of a mission day.

How We Developed This Project

We were inspired to choose this challenge due to the critical role that sleep plays in human performance and the added difficulty of sleeping in space with a sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes, so there is no consistent reference for the body across 24 hours, which requires the need for specific schedules to be adhered to, along with appropriate countermeasures such as exercise timing, lighting and nutrition.

Our approach involved researching the factors involved that influence circadian rhythms and the challenges of that in orbit for astronauts.

We decided to develop a prototype interface of the system which would take in biometric data from astronauts and process that into a smart daily schedule of sleep, exercise, food intake, working periods, etc.

This is version 1.0, with successive iterations to build on functionality and design to suit mission control teams and then eventually the wider public. We believe everyone deserves to be at their peak performance by working with the needs of your body, not against it.

We used Figma to develop our prototype, you can interact with it at the following link:

https://www.figma.com/proto/aAGiSv82qyvcPQ7KsuivLF/Circadia-Sleep-Shift-App?node-id=1%3A4&scaling=scale-down

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We analysed information from NASA investigations, existing scheduling tools and data, as well as accounts from astronauts available to us to inform our approach to a holistic solution to inform astronauts of their overall schedule and well being.

This included information such as nominal sleep durations, nutrition intake, exercise requirements, environmental lighting and temperature.

We assumed what a typical daily period may look like from crew schedule information we were able to obtain.

Nutrition needs were approximated based on what a typical male astronauts maximum intake would be.

Data from research investigations informed us as to what biometric information would be applicable to measure to inform of the quality of sleep and levels of fatigue.