TheSandmanFollowers| Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool

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.

Mr. Sandman - Healthcare Assistant

Summary

There are three important variables which are highly influential in an astronaut's labour: high-quality sleep, adequate nutrition and an efficient workout plan. If those are not perfectly regulated, they might endanger the mission. To avoid the possibility of this happening, we developed a Sleep Shift Scheduling Tool that provides a better organization regarding these three aspects, named “Mr. Sandman”. This tool aims to assist specifically each user, helping their personal body demands and making their stay in space a little easier.

How We Addressed This Challenge

We develop a combination of hardware and software technology that combines biotechnological approaches that helps astronauts to keep an organized schedule in their daily routines. Due to the fact that astronauts need to keep a strict routine this tool will keep regulated the important aspects of an astronaut's life which include, sleep, nutrition and exercise.

How We Developed This Project


Human body is a well designed machine that works perfectly on Earth conditions, so it is hard for it to adapt to the harsh conditions faced in space. Half of the astronauts in the whole world suffer from SAS (Statistical Analysis System) during the first period of the mission due to a permanent jet lag caused by sunrises and sunsets which occur every 90 minutes.   It is known that sleep loss and fatigue may lead to reduced performance and increased safety risks during many activities, including spaceflight. The challenge is to develop an operational Sleep Shift Scheduling tool in order to provide autonomous customization of a schedule for sleep, exercise, and nutrition to manage fatigue among other things.

To approach the problem, it was useful to divide it in parts. First, we needed to obtain the information about the general physical state of the crew members. The NASA’s database will provide some of the information needed, including facts of name, age, height and weight. In order to obtain more specific data, the idea is to implement a subcutaneous microchip which will be located in the upper part of the thorax, in the breastbone. This device is able to detect biological parameters that together, along with the database information, will analyze and generate specific answers according to the demands and requirements of each crew member every second. The microchip will be able to get information from inside of the subject´s system. The required data is: oxygen saturation, blood glucose levels and heartbeat; then, this information along with the one provided by the NASA’s database is going to be analyzed by Mr. Sandman in order to make him able to alert the astronauts about their needs. 

MicroChip:

The device that will be implemented in the person's body combines different technologies. The microchip is connected to Mr Sandman. The sensors included in the chip are made of a series of photodiodes (sensors that emit light). On one hand, there are the diodes whose main function is to emit infrared light, while the other diodes will be in charge of receiving the light that is reflected. Thanks to the short distance between the sensor and our skin, light can reach the veins. As a result, the light emitted from the diode emits a second light reflection that indicates the blood level in that specific place. As our heart pumps blood several times per minute, the blood level in the area, where the chip is inserted, varies; and as a consequence, the emitted light fluctuates, too. Consequently, beat after beat, Mr. Sandman is going to be capable of determining the beats per minute of their bodies.

As regards the continuous measure of glucose levels in the blood, the chip contains a microfilament that will be in contact with the interstitial fluid, from where the measurement of the glucose concentration will be obtained.

As for software technology, we developed a web based on C# coding language, in which all the data from the NASA's database and the information obtained from the microchip will be processed in order to generate specific highlights ,warnings and instructions to each member of the crew according to their current needs about sleeping time, nutrition and exercise time.

About the three porblems detected:

Sleep requirements: The heartbeat measures from the microchip will be used to detect how much time the person needs to rest. An average of 8 hours of daily sleep are required; therefore, Mr. Sandman will alert when the person has a lack of rest. Heart frequency decreases an 8% from the normal rate during the day; due to this fact, Mr. Sandman will know how much sleep hours the person has had.


Exercise: On average, an astronaut needs at least two hours of daily exercise to prevent their general physical health to decrease. The fact that heart rate indicates when a person is doing exercise will give Mr. Sandman the chance to calculate how much time a person needs to work out. Also, it will provide options of exercises that each member has to do, such as jogging, cycling or strength training. There are three main machines that astronauts use in their missions to do these activities. First, they have a “Cycle Ergometer” that is a cycle stationary machine. Also, they have a treadmill and an ARED (Advanced Resistive Exercise Device), one is for running and the other one is a specific device to practice strength resistance training. The last one uses vacuum cylinders to generate resistance. On the other hand, the ARED has been in the ISS (International Space Station) since 2009. It is able to generate a 600 pounds-limit of resistance. The simulated weight is made by a group of vacuum cylinders attached to a flywheel, which simulates the inertia felt when weight is lifted on the ground. Therefore, astronauts can work all major muscle groups.

Nutritional requirements: In order to ensure optimal labour activities, it is essential for each individual to keep a balanced diet, rich in both macro and micronutrients, fulfilling the organism necessities. Since space missions are highly controlled and regulated, the crew members are well provided with prepared meals which satisfy their nutritional demands for their whole space experience. Astronauts have different nutritional requirements from everybody else, they have to ingest about 2800 calories per day. It’s a fact that they might spend long periods of time without having any ingestion and this might impact negatively on their performance. Appropriately, this is when Mr. Sandman takes action and alerts when a person needs to eat something. The subcutaneous chip inserted on astronauts will detect blood glucose levels. When a fall in this level is detected, the person would be encouraged by Mr. Sandman to eat something from the prepared meals. On top of that, Mr Sandman will use the heart beat rate to calculate both, metabolic and exercise caloric expenditure of each person, and alert if the person has consumed less calories than needed. As a result, Mr. Sandman encourages them to ingest food.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

We used different resources to obtain the needed information. We needed high quality background information in order to understand the problem and find a solution, there is where the resources from NASA`s was really useful





We also count that the NASA`s data base will provide the complete infromation about each member of the crew for Mr.Sandman to respond coorrectly.

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#MrSandman #engineering #coding #biotechnology #innovation #sleeping #nutrition #exercise #solution
Judging
This project was submitted for consideration during the Space Apps Judging process.