Join the DARPA Triage Challenge! Deadline for registration: Monday 13 November, 2023

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research and development agency within the Department of Defense, is seeking competitors for a new medical response challenge. The DARPA Triage Challenge aims to drive breakthrough innovations that improve medical response time during mass casualty incidents in complex military and civilian settings, especially when medical resources are limited relative to the need.

The challenge includes a series of technical challenge events to drive breakthrough innovations in the identification of physiological features (signatures) of injury, and help medical responders perform scalable, timely, and accurate triage. The challenge has two primary triage competitions – Systems and Virtual – and a secondary triage Data competition. The Systems and Virtual competitions focus on stand-off sensing of physiological data using autonomous platforms – uncrewed aerial and ground vehicles – during primary triage. Competitors will conduct real-time sensor data analysis to identify casualties for urgent hands-on evaluation by medical personnel.

Relevant to the PhysioNet community, the Data competition seeks to identify physiological signatures of injury derived from data captured by non-invasive sensors (contact-based or stand-off). Such advances could accelerate responders’ anticipatory decisions and prioritization for medical care during secondary triage. Competitors will attempt to develop algorithms that detect signatures in these data streams to provide decision support appropriate for austere and complex pre-hospital settings. Of particular interest are early signatures indicating a need for life-saving interventions against conditions that medics are trained and equipped to treat during secondary triage, such as hemorrhage and airway injuries.

The Data competition will use DARPA-provided de-identified, multi-modal physiological data from trauma patients across diverse settings and cohorts provided by the DARPA Research Infrastructure for Trauma with Medical Observations effort. Data types include, but are not limited, to: photoplethysmography (PPG) waveforms, medical procedures, imaging results and video footage during prehospital helicopter transport and in the trauma bay.

Prizes for year one:

• Systems Competition: Up to $200K Prize pool
• Virtual Competition: Up to $100K Prize pool
• Data Competition: Up to $200K Prize pool

Total Prizes $7M over three challenges

DARPA is currently seeking self-funded competitors. Join us by registering on the Qualification Portal, now through Nov. 13, 2023.

For more information visit the DARPA Triage Challenge website.