About AMEDD - AMEDD Innovations Since Desert Storm

Special shelters enable Army medical personnel to care for patients in a clean, toxic-free, "shirt-sleeve" environment even when operating in areas contaminated by chemical and/or biological agents. There are two types of system.

Chemical-Biological Protective Shelter (CBPS)

• Highly mobile, chemically and biologically protected, environmentally controlled work area for forward deployed medical treatment units. The CBPS allows the unit to continue patient care when the unit comes under chemical or biological attack.
• CBPS consists of a dedicated M1113 Humvee vehicle; a lightweight multipurpose shelter, a 300-square-foot semi-cylindrical airbeam-supported soft shelter, stored and mounted on the back of the Humvee for transporting; and a towed high-mobility trailer with 10-kilowatt tactical quiet generator for auxiliary power. Unit Soldiers can configure multiple systems to provide a single chem-bio protected area.
• A single CBPS system can be inflated in four minutes and fully operational in less than 20 minutes. All power is provided by the Humvee engine or from the auxiliary generator. A hydraulically powered environmental support system on the front of the shelter provides heating, cooling, airbeam inflation, chemical-biological filtration and ventilation air. Multiple systems can be complexed.
• CBPS is now being fielded to line-battalion treatment squads (aid stations), division/corps medical companies and forward surgical teams, including some units supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Chemically Protected Deployable Medical Systems (CP DEPMEDS)

• Provides environmentally controlled collective protection for the core components of combat support hospitals using DEPMEDS (Deployable Medical System) equipment.
• A joint Army-Air Force program with U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command at Natick, Mass., as the lead material developer for the Army.
• Each hospital consists of TEMPER tents, ISO shelters and connecting passageways. CP DEPMEDS is an integration effort to bring together the necessary components. Collective protection is provided by a chemical-biological protective liner system; nuclear-chemical-biological filters; an overpressurization system; low-pressure alarms; chemically hardened, field deployable environmental control units; airlocks for personnel, patients and resupply; CB-protected water distribution; and CB-protected latrines.
• CP DEPMEDS sets are being placed in Army prepositioned stocks for fielding to units deploying to high-threat areas. The Army is currently fielding CP DEPMEDS in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.