The Pentagon has seen a number of uniform updates in recent years. However, it isn’t just how today’s service members appear – or in the case of the latest camouflage may not be so easily seen on the battlefield. Recently, the DoD has been investigating the benefits of wearable technologies.
Last month, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), in partnership with the private sector, reported that it had developed a wearable device that proved highly successful during the COVID-19 pandemic in identifying infections.
The Pentagon is now exploring ways to expand its use to other infectious disease detection in service members – which military leaders said could aid in readiness. The Rapid Assessment of Threat Exposure (RATE) program was initially started by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) in 2020, to new user groups after leading a successful prototype during COVID-19.
Maintaining a Healthy Force
Such technology could be quite the game changer for the military, which had to cope with the pandemic as much as the rest of the country. In fact, multiple U.S. Navy warships – including the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) – were sidelined after COVID-19 spread throughout the crews.
On the carrier, of the total 4,800 sailors and marines serving on board, 1,273 had contracted the coronavirus, and one sailor died. The ship was out of service for two months.
It should be remembered too that 43,000 U.S. soldiers died of “Spanish Flu” during the First World War, essentially three-quarters as high as the 53,402 combat deaths in the conflict.
Wearable technology could help stop an outbreak.
AI-Powered
The RATE project is powered by a predictive artificial intelligence algorithm that was trained using hospital-acquired data from monitored cases of COVID-19.
According to DIU, the algorithm leverages biometric data from commercial-grade off-the-shelf wearables, while the RATE algorithm enabled early detection of infectious diseases up to 48 hours before symptoms appeared. In some cases, RATE was able to predict infections up to six days prior to onset.
“The DoD invests heavily in maintaining the readiness of its workforce to conduct essential missions. However, the risk of infectious diseases, like COVID-19, has long been an unpredictable variable. With RATE, the DoD can use commercial wearables to noninvasively monitor a service member’s health and provide early alerts to potential infection before it spreads,” said Jeff Schneider, RATE program manager.
RATE was also one of the first 10 pilot programs funded through the Congressionally-established Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies initiative to fill critical capability gaps. It will receive $10 million in additional funds, which will allow RATE to build on its 2020-21 success and next demonstrate that wearable technology could predict COVID-19 and other infections 2.3 days prior to diagnostic testing.
The effort was transitioned in 2022 to DIU to continue the effort after the initial success of the project. With the additional funding, DIU is adding 4,500 more users across the department.
“The DoD’s investment in wearables makes a great deal of sense, especially in light of its success in detecting COVID,” said technology industry analyst Charles King of Pund-IT.
“One of the most insidious things about the virus was how often infected people appeared asymptomatic, meaning they could unthinkingly spread COVID to coworkers, friends, and family members,” King told ClearanceJobs.
“After it was discovered that a low-grade fever was one of the earliest detectable symptoms, workplaces, and healthcare centers began testing people’s temperatures prior to allowing them to enter,” King continued. “That significantly reduced the spread of the disease. By developing its algorithm and employing off-the-shelf wearables, the DoD should be able to reduce the risk of disease among soldiers and other personnel, helping to ensure that deployed units remain at or near full strength.”
Multiple Wearable Efforts Underway
DIU’s RATE project is just one of several wearable programs now being explored by the U.S. military.
Last August, the United States Army released a solicitation that sought to identify new wearable technologies to address the current and future needs of its personnel, and to leverage new and innovative wearable technologies and capabilities to enhance soldier operational readiness and sustainability. That included devices that could collect and monitor real-time physiological data that can track human performance, cognitive resilience, illness prediction, disease detection, and behavioral health across all training and operational environments.
In January 2022, the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) issued a solicitation for a state-of-the-art fatigue detector as part of the Real-Time Assessment and Augmentation of Cognitive Performance in Extreme Environments project. The service was seeking the development of a system that would be capable of continuously monitoring the biometrics of fatigue and stress using electrophysiological sensors and biomarkers.
Soon what service members are wearing will be able to readily identify more than just their name, rank, and unit.
