The optimization of military personnel's ability to achieve the restorative effects of sleep and perform at very high levels for long durations, process information and make the right decisions in a timely manner while operating in extreme conditions and under high levels of stress will significantly improve their operational effectiveness. When designing ships, primary consideration has historically been given to the systems, equipment, and machinery required for the vessel to accomplish the assigned mission, with the human design element entering the process both late and in a somewhat binary fashion. This is a natural follow-on from a Technical Paper published in NEJ in 2015 "Human Endurance In Ship Design ". The issue is that while engineers continually redesign systems and maintenance procedures to leverage technology, the human operator has documented sleep requirements and is a critical part of the combat system, yet little has changed over the years in the design of berthing. Some of the goals in addressing sleep performance in the military include: 1. The ability to maintain a circadian sleep schedule based on a 24-hour day. 2. The ability to reduce sleep latency and speed sleep onset. 3. The ability to prevent interruptions and maintain a stable sleeping environment. 4. The ability to improve the sleep efficiency throughout the intended duration of sleep. 5. The ability to optimize the stages of sleep where the highest restorative effects occur (i.e., Stage 3/ deep sleep, and Stage 4/rapid eye movement sleep). 6. The ability to non-invasively and accurately monitor sleep in real-time on an individual basis. This paper explores the advances made operationally in the Surface Force adopting circadian watch rotations and increasing manning to support better crew endurance, but also explores technology based on sleep research that could be incorporated into ship design such as: improved sound proofing, better light control (including use of various light colors and frequencies), temperature controls, mattress technology, and up to a "virtual sleep environment" using a form of Simulated Reality similar to VR to create an ideal sleep quality. The premise is that these engineering improvements could complement policy decisions that may increase the quantity of sleep by improving the quality of sleep and thus the crew endurance and performance of the operator.
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