Battelle's Drone Assisted Rapid Triage (DART) Takes Top Spot in DARPA Triage Challenge Systems Competition

COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Battelle recently won the top spot in a competition hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that determined new technologies to assist emergency responders.

The ability to accurately and rapidly identify key physiological signatures of injury, such as hemorrhage and airway injuries, proved key to success in the DARPA Triage Challenge Event 1. Battelle’s DART took the top spot in the Systems Competition and another Battelle team called CRITIC took sixth place in the Data Competition.

DARPA is seeking to apply technology to assist emergency responders in locating critically injured survivors, assessing their injuries, and determining who to transport first. The DARPA Triage Challenge aims to drive breakthrough innovations in identifying physiological signatures of injury that will help medical responders perform scalable, timely, and accurate triage.

Battelle is one of a dozen DARPA-funded teams taking on the DARPA Triage Challenge. For Battelle, it is a multiphase-funded contract worth $3.75 million over three years and a competition with prize money, up to $7 million across the primary (systems) triage competitions.

Battelle’s solutions are intended to supplement the expertise of emergency responders and healthcare professionals in civilian and military settings. The primary triage goal is to use remote sensors to keep first responders out of harm’s way, collect data beyond human capacity, rapidly distill vast amounts of information, reduce cognitive load, and assist on-site clinicians in making timely and informed decisions in complex and stressful situations. The secondary triage goal is to identify physiological signatures of injury from non-invasive sensors to enable anticipatory decisions and prioritization for medical evacuation and care. The Battelle Team is using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify these signatures and make accurate predictions for the need of life-saving interventions.

The systems competition comprises a series of simulated mass casualty incidents designed to assess the primary stage of triage. The primary stage requires the support of sensors on stand-off platforms like uncrewed aircraft vehicles (UAVs). In contrast, the data competition evaluates algorithms on de-identified, multimodal physiological data from trauma patients across diverse settings and cohorts.

Triage of mass casualties is a demanding task, especially in hazardous situations where resources are limited, and medical personnel are outnumbered. In such cases, casualties must be prioritized to provide the greatest good for the most significant number of people in the shortest time.

“Triage of mass casualties is always a challenge,” said Carl Blaesing, Battelle Environmental Scientist III in the Health Research & Analytics business, who has firsthand experience in disaster response. “There is an almost unbearable burden of making triage decisions in real-time, especially if these decisions are with individuals you actually know. The human emotional element and decision regret have a high mental health impact on first responders. Having a collaborative decision support system will simultaneously make the response more efficient and much less stressful for those responding.”

The DARPA Triage Challenge includes three challenge events, each increasing in complexity. For primary triage, Battelle is physically testing their system in mock mass casualty events staged with actors and manikins to correctly locate and assess injuries of as many casualties as possible in an allotted timeframe. For secondary triage, the team received data feeds they’ve never encountered and are using their algorithms to predict which patients need lifesaving interventions. “Using AI to assist with medical triage could promote faster and more informed decisions by medical responders in critical situations,” said Collin Dunlap, Data Scientist III, principal investigator of the data competition team.

“Solving challenging problems with groundbreaking technology that makes a positive societal impact is what drives our team,” said Sam Colachis, Biomedical Engineer III on Battelle’s Medical Device Solutions team and principal investigator for the primary triage portion of the challenge. “We are thrilled to be developing innovative solutions that support our country’s first responders and improve outcomes for the communities they serve.”

About Battelle

Every day, the people of Battelle apply science and technology to solving what matters most. At major technology centers and national laboratories around the world, Battelle conducts research and development, designs and manufactures products, and delivers critical services for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio since its founding in 1929, Battelle serves the national security, health and life sciences, and energy and environmental industries. For more information, visit www.battelle.org.