A €200,000 investment by the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) was crucial for the creation of a collaborative project between scientists from the Department of Physics (including members of the Electromagnetics group) and the Institute of Space Sciences & Astronomy (ISSA) at the University of Malta, the Hyperbaric Unit at Mater Dei Hospital, and the private industry.
This collaboration brought about the development of The Personal Decompression Monitor (PerDeMon), a state-of-the-art device carrying a specialised sensor that is attached to the diver to yield real-time data, that can be used to tailor the decompression schedule to the individual diver to maximise safety.
Minister for Equality, Research and Innovation Owen Bonnici visited the labs at the University of Malta, where work on this research project is taking place. Dr Bonnici met the team of researchers working on this project, led by Dr Joseph Caruana, (Department of Physics and Institute of Space Sciences & Astronomy) who showed him the latest developments in their PerDeMon project, explaining how they managed to find an innovative way to establish a link between measurable physiological data and inert gas loading, thus making the process of decompression much safer for divers.
Minister Bonnici commended the researchers for their great achievements and said that “The government is committed to keeping sustaining such projects, investing in the future and the creation of new solutions that can eventually be commercialised. Such collaborations are crucial for local research and innovation and need to be encouraged and incentivised.”
Nowadays, divers keep track of the time spent at given depths via a dive computer, which employs an algorithm to compute an ascent schedule, prescribing stops at given depths to allow the inert gasses to come out of solution slowly. The specific schedule depends on the particular dive profile, and the process is modelled within a generalised theoretical framework that is not diver specific. This device will make the decompression process more personalised and therefore tailored to the diver’s particular physiological needs at the time.
The device will be tested extensively at all stages of development, with final trials envisaged during actual dives, where a prototype will be tested and validated in tandem with a commercial decompression computer.
Source: Office of the Prime Minister