View2Decide: A Wearable Traffic-Light Display for Real-Time Physiological Decision Support in Military First Response

Abstract

Emerging trends in soldier systems increasingly emphasize wearable sensing and real-time physiological status monitoring to enhance operational decision-making and situational awareness. Within the “Soldier of the Future” paradigm, individual physiological data has become a key enabler for both medical support and tactical assessment. While the Austrian Armed Forces’ VitalMonitor infrastructure allows continuous monitoring of vital parameters, existing visualization tools – such as smartphones, tablets, or laptops – are often impractical for first responders under high-stress or time-critical conditions. View2Decide addresses this gap by providing a compact, wearable display module that conveys critical physiological status through an intuitive traffic-light scheme, enabling rapid assessment of multiple individuals in the field. The system integrates modular hardware, BLE-based communication, and simplified status derivation to maintain robustness, low cognitive load, and operational flexibility. The proof-of-concept prototype demonstrates that an ESP32-based display, combined with a smartphone or future embedded communication nodes, can reliably present real-time physiological status in an easily interpretable format, including sequential assessment of multiple casualties. This paper presents the system architecture, user requirements, visualization logic, and prototype implementation, highlighting how device-agnostic, low-barrier status visualization can support frontline decision-making. View2Decide represents a promising step toward scalable, sensor-supported triage solutions for future soldier systems.

Keywords: Military Training, Physiological Strain, Wearable Biosensors, Real-time Physiological Stress Monitoring, First Responder, Decision Support

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007356