
On Monday 5th December 2022, ATLAM Sub-Aqua Club hosted a presentation by DAN about recent advances in diving research, presented by Professor Alessandro Marroni.
The well attended event by local recreational and professional divers and instructors numbering close to a hundred were regaled with a very interesting presentation starting from Prof. Marroni’s dream and thesis from back in his youth of being able to monitor data about a diver whilst being underwater and using that data to eventually lead to better information about how to improve safety in diving.
The advances in technology throughout the years has enabled this dream to slowly slowly becoming a reality. From additional monitoring and data, better evidence and information has been obtained to identify better the physiological status of a diver and detect changes in the body that may put him at higher risk. Today’s technology has evolved so much, that now DAN has reached the pre-industrial stage of a system that enables divers’ physiological parameters to be monitored not just when in a pool or enclosed body of water, but even during a normal dive using acoustic wireless transmission and equipment which looks no more than a very thin undervest and a small device.
Data obtained from such equipment can be livestreamed across the world in real time, being made accessible to the researchers at DAN and also fed back to divers themselves to minimise risks and improve overall the experience of diving. Data from the almost 100,000 recorded dives with significant dive profile data in DAN’s data lake served to increased learning for the diving sector itself, but the technologies are also cascading into other areas, serving the wider community.
An interesting proposal Prof. Marroni also made is for divers to assist in these research projects either through Clubs such as ATLAM or Diving centres or even individually to join as citizen science research volunteers and assist in growing the database of dive profiles. Clubs and Diving Centres can get in contact directly with DAN, even through their local campus in Gozo which will soon have some early DANA equipment readily available to carry out analysis locally. Individual divers may also join in the research through the Diver Safety Guardian portal. The portal enables you to upload dive profile information which gets added back into the DAN research, but you also get back information to help you manage your risks better and an online logbook.
If you haven’t attended the presentation but you would still like to know more about the advances presented, this article from Diver Magazine covers a lot of the information presented, though additional data has been added over the last few months.