DARPA’S PROJECT ICEMAN COULD FIGURE OUT WHAT’S BUGGING FIGHTER PILOTS

[rangerrebew]

DARPA’S PROJECT ICEMAN COULD FIGURE OUT WHAT’S BUGGING FIGHTER PILOTS
Hope Seck | December 1, 2022

The cockpit of a fighter jet can be a mysterious place.


The Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have all had to investigate rashes of “unexplained physiological episodes” in recent years, as pilots in certain aircraft were experiencing strange symptoms ranging from dizziness to tingling fingers and labored breathing.


A new DARPA initiative now seeks to understand the full physical impact of the cockpit environment on pilots – from radio frequency to electromagnetic feedback – and help the military better prepare its aviators for what they’ll experience.
 
Called the Impact of Cockpit Electro-Magnetics on Aircrew Neurology (ICEMAN) Project, the effort was launched in 2020 with a formal request for research proposals on the topic. A six-month first phase that started last year enabled three selected partners to fine-tune their plans for monitoring the cockpit environment. But with Phase Two, which began in May, the effort is really getting underway.

To answer your first question: Yes, the ICEMAN name is a very self-aware reference to Val Kilmer’s cocky fighter jock in Top Gun. Air Force Col. Dan “Animal” Javorsek, then the program manager for DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution Program, brought the project into existence and came up with its memorable name.

 https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/darpas-project-iceman-could-figure-out-whats-bugging-fighter-pilots/

[rangerrebew]

Can't they check a list of all parts and components?  If the Pentagon doesn't have such lists, I'm sure Russia or China can get them one.

[Smokin Joe]

Can't they check a list of all parts and components?  If the Pentagon doesn't have such lists, I'm sure Russia or China can get them one.

Nope. Put your tinfoil hat on, but all those instruments put out electromagnetic fields. Those fields may combine or fall out, like any wave forms to provide areas inside the cockpit with high or low EM concentrations, and those concentrations at specific frequencies may have an effect on perception or cognition.
After all, the brain is an electrochemical computer.

If those fields/frequencies are detracting from pilot performance, or combining to do so, then some sort of adjustment must be made or shielding installed for the pilot to have optimal performance.

The very devices that are there to make the pilot more capable may be rendering him/her less so.

I would think that someone, somewhere, has studied at least some of the effects of EM radiation on brain function, maybe DARPA, maybe as part of MK-ULTRA or some other program. If so, it is a question of putting that information with a 3-D map of the EM field strengths/frequencies in the cockpit to figure out what is interfering with performance, and those frequencies/fields may be subject to change depending on what armaments or features are being utilized.

Once that is done and the assessment of the effects made, countermeasures can be taken to prevent performance degradation.