FLC | Army CCDC Soldier Center designs COVID-19 face coverings

Army CCDC Soldier Center designs COVID-19 face coverings

May 4, 2020

Dangerous times call for quick action, including rapid prototype development. With this reality in mind, the Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (CCDC SC) quickly designed face covering prototypes that comply with Department of Defense (DoD) standards and meet Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requirements for protection against COVID-19.

The CCDC SC developed six prototypes for face coverings, tested the prototypes, and chose one prototype that was highly rated by soldiers for immediate development. CCDC SC also selected a second prototype, also well received by soldiers, that has been further developed and coordinated with Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier to be a more permanent Army solution.

"At CCDC SC our priority is for the soldier to not to be burdened by what they are wearing, so they can focus on their mission," said Annette LaFleur, team leader for the Design, Pattern and Prototype Team in the Soldier Protection and Survivability Directorate at CCDC SC. "For the face coverings, the goal is to meet the intent of the CDC and DoD guidelines for use of cloth face coverings when in public.”

CCDC SC efforts focus on the research, development, and early engineering of the solution and building a Technical Data Package. The designs developed at CCDC SC have transitioned to its partners at PEO Soldier – Project Manager Soldier Survivability for production efforts. CCDC SC is also partnering with PEO Soldier on future iterations.

"During the pandemic, we must ensure that our soldiers remain ready for any mission and that they are protected” said Douglas Tamilio, director of the CCDC SC. “Our soldier protection and human factors expertise, combined with our testing and prototyping capabilities, enabled us to quickly develop an Army acceptable solution to the urgent requirement for face coverings.”

CCDC SC is committed to discovering, developing, and advancing science and technology solutions that ensure America’s warfighters are optimized, protected, and lethal. CCDC SC supports all of the Army's Modernization efforts, with the Soldier Lethality and Synthetic Training Environment Cross Functional Teams being the CCDC SC’s chief areas of focus. The center’s science and engineering expertise are combined with collaborations with industry, DoD, and academia to advance soldier and squad performance.

Clothing designers on the Design, Pattern, & Prototype Team worked with load carriage experts at CCDC SC to rapidly develop an array of potential prototype systems that included six potential designs. CCDC SC’s Human Factors Team assessed the prototypes on Human Research Volunteers stationed at CCDC SC. The designs were given to soldiers for feedback, a key component of all design efforts at CCDC SC.

“CCDC SC items, including the face covering, are developed with the soldier from the beginning stages, so we can say it is ‘soldier tested and soldier approved,’” said Molly Richards, a research chemical engineer at CCDC SC.

The first design developed by CCDC SC is being fabricated in-house. A small team of employees across three directorates is fabricating the first design with an initial quantity of 10,000 face covers to outfit soldiers in basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia.