Personalized Performance Optimization Platform (P-POP)

BACKGROUND: The environmental conditions of prolonged spaceflight pose significant psychological risks for astronauts. In particular, long duration exposure to an isolated and confined environment can contribute to adverse cognitive or behavioral events and compromise mission safety and/or success. In order to mitigate against mission-related disruptions arising from decrements in behavioral health and performance, NASA needs a set of validated strategies on-board to both maintain and restore psychological well-being and operational effectiveness. This proposal aims to refine and empirically assess a platform technology designed to monitor and guide crewmembers towards optimal physiological and mental states for current or future tasks via personalized manipulation of the surrounding work environment. Our closed-loop, feedback-based intervention approach will not only enable the maintenance of individual behavioral functioning, but will promote improved team operations as well. Our four specific aims are as follows:

AIM 1: Perform a detailed risk assessment of factors that contribute to personal (and team) dysfunction, particularly in isolated, confined, and extreme environments.

AIM 2: Develop a personalized performance-optimization platform (P-POP) based on closed-loop/feedback that integrates physiological sensing with augmentation of the astronaut’s local working environment (e.g., audio, haptics, light).

AIM 3: Characterize the ability of P-POP to improve key performance capabilities including attention, response time, memory, cognitive control, and operationally-relevant performance.

AIM 4: Assess the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of our proposed platform for use in individuals and teams via empirical testing during long-duration spaceflight analogs.

HYPOTHESES: (Hyp1) The novel P-POP will provide real-time physiological monitoring to enable the personalized manipulation of the local work environment—both in the lab and in Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA). (Hyp2) Our targeted work environment modulations (e.g., sound, haptics, light) will generate significant improvements in individuals’ cognitive and operational performance.

DELIVERABLES: Our project will generate the following deliverables: (1) a characterization of those factors that contribute to poor individual and team performance in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) settings; (2) a novel platform technology capable of real-time tracking of psychological and behavioral health markers and providing targeted augmentation of the local work environment to manipulate those markers; (3) an evaluation of the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of the proposed platform technology, on both individual and team metrics, including testing in a spaceflight analog. Based on our findings, we will develop specific protocols and guidelines for optimal deployment of our platform, as well as providing standards recommendations.

SIGNIFICANCE: This work will provide NASA with a novel and scalable platform technology for on-board behavioral health management—adapting the local working environment via biosensing and feedback. The approach is personalized and closed-loop, guiding individuals away from less-optimal states (as assessed by physiological measurements) and towards more-optimal states. We expect the approach to help maintain and improve individual performance as well as team performance. The system does not require video displays or graphics. Importantly, however, the platform will be designed for future augmentation via other countermeasure approaches (e.g., visual, olfactory), depending on the needs and capabilities of any particular exploration mission. On Earth, such a platform could have considerable utility for optimizing human performance in a wide range of workplaces.

The goal of P-POP is to develop a personalized/wearable system that can help enhance user cognitive and spaceflight operations performance. The system will incorporate relatively low-tech "countermeasures"--haptic stimuli, auditory stimuli, and lighting stimuli--to help optimize the user's alertness, attention, and motivation and/or relaxation depending on the requirements of the task. The optimization will be based on a "closed loop" concept whereby physiological sensing will help identify the user's present state, optimization via one or more countermeasures (CMs) will be deployed, and physiological sensing will determine the consequences of the CMs, allowing for real-time, adaptive feedback-based optimization. Such an approach--being based on feedback from the individual--is inherently personalized: each individual crewmember, by using their own system, can achieve different simulation/relaxation goals simultaneously. On Earth, such a platform could have similar utility for optimizing human performance in a wide range of office or remote workplace settings.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.