Portable wireless battlefield ministration tracking and information system

The US Army requires an innovative approach for delivery of emergency religious support while conducting the full range of military operations in support of Force XXI concept. This dictates the necessity for members of the Unit Ministry Team (UMT) to deploy anywhere in the world and conduct emergency religious support operations. This trend emphasizes the urgent need for religious support from UMT personnel on the battlefield. In particular, the Army desires to provide next-of-kin notification officers and accompanying chaplains with vital casualty information such as last rites and battlefield pastoral care. This requires the members of the UMT to adapt to new technologies, systems, and structures to remain integrated in America's Army. To respond to this requirement, we have designed an architecture and a proof-of-concept prototype of a "portable, wireless battlefield ministration tracking and information system" under the US Army's Advanced Concepts and Technology II (ACT-II) program. It provides the members of the Unit Ministry Team (UMT) and other appropriate personnel with the capability to digitally store and transmit casualty emergency ministrations and pastoral care information via hand-held and mobile wireless computing devices to a centralized data collection point. The hand-held and mobile computing devices are envisioned to be carried by members of UMT as they care for casualties on the battlefield. For identification of individual casualties, the solution would be capable of utilizing smart card technology. We present our proposed solution end its associated system architecture.