"Phystech students invented a smart training suit. Cosmonauts got curious."
- under this headline an article in the biggest Russian newspaper (namely, Komsomolskaya Pravda, which is even listed in Guinness World Records for the largest circulation ever) is going to be published next week.
We have never thought that participation in the Imagine Cup could lead us to a meeting with cosmonauts, the people who have always had the iconic status in Russia. Yet, we were proved wrong when we found ourselves in the Star Village last Thursday. The Star Village is an area in Moscow city near the Ostankino Tower where many cosmonauts and their families live.
We received a warm welcome from Alexander Kaleri, an active cosmonaut and the Hero of the Russian Federation and Alexander Serebrov, the Hero of the Soviet Union who in total spent more than a year on orbit (373 days), made 10 space walks resulting in more than 30 hours in the open space. He has also served as a Space Advisor to the President of Russia and as a Member of the Board of Directors of The Society for International Space Cooperation (SISC). The cosmonauts were accompanied by experts in virtual reality (Stanislav V. Klimenko, the Director of the Institute of Computing for Physics and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and biomedical cybernetics (Vladimir A. Petrukhin, Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine).
Alexander Kaleri, the Hero of Russia
Alexander Serebrov, the Hero of the USSR.
The quartet gathered to see the presentation of Sportster in the Star Village largely due to the fact that the suit's brain (the program that works on the smartphone) is based on the same medical theory which was used for monitoring the physiological and psychological state of cosmonauts both during the preparation for space flights and on the orbit. The theory - invented by Dr. Roman M. Bayevsky in late 1950's - was first applied in Yuri Gagarin flight on April 12, 1961 and then was being consistently refined during the consecutive cosmonaut flights to the orbit. In late 1980's Bayevsky method was used in the training process of USSR national biathlone and marathone teams. In early 2000's it is being used in a prototype of a smart training suit which uses the influence of music to help people on planet Earth train smarter, have more fun and basically lead heathier lives.
The method calculates various statistical properties of the human electrocardiogram. The calculated numbers - called Bayevsky indexes - can tell you the current physiological and even psychological state of the person with a very high degree of accuracy. You can almost tell your current mood by calculating the indexes and using adaptive algorithms.
We ran a full 20-minute demo for the cosmonauts. All the features worked perfectly. Sergey ran for 10 minutes in the presentation hall in the Star Village. The cosmonauts witnessed all the information from Sergey's sportsterwear sensors on a large screen. They also saw how system guides the athlete during the workout and uses music to make him follow the training program. The program adjusts training program based on the feedback from ECG and its decisions are based on Bayevsky method.
Serebrov and Kaleri (left) are listening to Anton (center). Sergey and Dr. Klimenko are on the right. The Imagine Cup (center) was brought to the Star Village to tell the cosmonauts more about the competition.
This meeting went very well and was very encouraging for us especially because Alexander Serebrov and Alexander Kaleri appreciated our project.
"Overall well done! Especially how you use music. I've always trained with music on the orbit." - Serebrov said.
At that day (last Thursday) we also finished our work on water isolation. Now we can wash our sportsterwear because we use two-layer water protection system for our sensors with waterproof hermetic Sealant Pentelast 1100.
Left to Right: Alexander Kaleri, Yuri Gagarin (the first man in Space), Alexander Serebrov
Left to Right: Kirill, Stan (mentor), Denis, Sergey, A. Kaleri, Y. Gagarin (portrait), A. Serebrov, S. Klimenko, V. Petrukhin, Nick (mentor), Anton
P.S. For those who don't know who cosmonauts are: "Astronaut" is a US version of "Cosmonaut" (Astronaut is a greek word for "the sailor of the stars" while Cosmonaut stands for "the sailor of the universe").