The US Navy uses bottlenose dolphins in the fleets operational Marine Mammal Systems to protect harbors, detect mines, and locate/recover hardware. To maintain fitness of these animals, Navy vets use monitoring, such as ECG, to assess cardiac health. However, current technologies limit use to dock-side treatment, potentially confounding or hiding cardiac issues. Thus, there is a need for a wearable, wireless ECG unit to monitor cardiac rate and rhythm while the animal is at rest and swimming. To address this need, Luna Innovations, marine mammal vets, and ML/AI experts at Elder Research propose development of SWiM3: Submersible, Wireless Marine Mammal Monitor. This low-power, extended monitoring, wireless sensor system will be ruggedized for the marine environment, but hydrodynamic and low-profile for dolphin safety and comfort. The electronics are developed from a range of Lunas current monitoring systems that couple ruggedization from armament monitoring with physiologic sensing and safety from newborn wearables ensuring a successful, effective device for marine mammals.
Benefit: Cardiac disease remains a clinically relevant cause of morbidity and mortality in dolphins both in managed care and free ranging populations, necessitating cardiac monitoring systems. However, dock-side monitoring may not capture significant cardiac issues. Thus, there are over 3000 managed dolphins with hundreds of thousands of free-ranging dolphins and other marine mammals that could potentially benefit from non-invasive, safe, and comfortable in-water measurement methods.
Keywords: cardiac, cardiac, ECG, Marine Mammals, Physiologic monitor
