Pentagon’s new wearable device detects illness before symptoms appear

A new wearable device in the form of a smartwatch alerts military personnel to signs of illness before symptoms appear. The Threat Exposure Rapid Assessment (RATE) project installs sensors in commercial watches and rings and sends data to programs that assess potential infections.

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) launched the RATE initiative in 2018. This has led to the widespread and successful use of his RATE during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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A new wearable device in the form of a smartwatch alerts military personnel to signs of illness before symptoms appear. The Threat Exposure Rapid Assessment (RATE) project installs sensors in commercial watches and rings and sends data to programs that assess potential infections.

The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) launched the RATE initiative in 2018. This led to the widespread use of her RATE during the COVID-19 pandemic to successfully identify the onset of infection before patients were aware of it. Now the Department of Defense is expanding its use to detect a wider range of infections.

When the project started, test patients had to wear a variety of large, hospital-grade equipment to collect data. By the time the new coronavirus emerged, the research team realized that sensors needed to be smaller and easier to wear.

“We looked at some clinical grade medical wearable devices. These very clunky watches really serve no purpose other than to provide clinical grade equipment. They said it was too clunky,” RATE project manager Jeff Schneider said in an interview with the Federal News Network. “The Pentagon Combatant is not going to use it.

Schneider’s team used data from monitoring COVID-19 patients to improve algorithms that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to draw conclusions about health data. Sensors monitor body temperature, heart rate, and respiration, along with a total of 160 types of raw biometric data feeding the algorithms. That information creates a score from 1 to 100 to determine the health status of the individual.

The team started testing the device during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it needed some fine-tuning. Initially, the device was only able to detect about 10% of COVID-19 cases. Accuracy improved as the algorithm continued to get feedback.

“We learned about algorithms, we learned about wearables. By December 2020, we had a fully functional algorithm used by about 11,500 people, well before a vaccine was available. We had a 73% chance of detecting the novel coronavirus,” Schneider said. “On average, it took about two and a half days for someone to show symptoms.

Going forward, the Department of Defense has secured funding to provide RATE devices to 4,500 new users. Now that the team has found a way to detect the novel coronavirus, DIU plans to improve the algorithm’s ability to detect other health problems.

DIU partnered with health technology company Philips to develop wearable devices using off-the-shelf products.

“We use wearables as they are. We don’t modify watches or rings. We push to Philips servers with cloud solutions, where the AI, or machine learning, happens,” said Schneider.

As the DIU moves through its programs, one of the next changes will be the Bring Your Own Device program. Schneider said he hopes it will give military personnel more choice in the types of watches and rings they use to collect data.

“We’ve also built three other commercial wearables. If someone has that watch or ring, we want them to keep theirs. I tell them what they don’t want. , I’m not going to tell you to buy something you don’t use,” he said.

The DIU team also plans to improve the server so that it can work with up to 1 million users and make more algorithmic improvements. Subsequent research programs will investigate a variety of diseases, including variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In the future, Schneider said he hopes RATE will progress to the point where it can detect new diseases before they reach the level of a national health crisis.



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A new wearable device in the form of a smartwatch alerts military personnel to signs of illness before symptoms appear. The Threat Exposure Rapid Assessment (RATE) project installs sensors in commercial watches and rings and sends data to programs that assess potential infections. The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) launched the RATE initiative in 2018. This has led to the widespread and successful use of his RATE during the COVID-19 pandemic.read moreA new wearable device in the form of a smartwatch alerts military personnel to signs of illness before symptoms appear. The Threat Exposure Rapid Assessment (RATE) project installs sensors in commercial watches and rings and sends data to programs that assess potential infections.
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) launched the RATE initiative in 2018. This led to the widespread use of her RATE during the COVID-19 pandemic to successfully identify the onset of infection before patients were aware of it. Now the Department of Defense is expanding its use to detect a wider range of infections.
When the project started, test patients had to wear a variety of large, hospital-grade equipment to collect data. By the time the new coronavirus emerged, the research team realized that sensors needed to be smaller and easier to wear.
“We looked at some clinical grade medical wearable devices. These very clunky watches really serve no purpose other than to provide clinical grade equipment. They said it was too clunky,” RATE project manager Jeff Schneider said in an interview with the Federal News Network. “The Pentagon Combatant is not going to use it.

Schneider’s team used data from monitoring COVID-19 patients to improve algorithms that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to draw conclusions about health data. Sensors monitor body temperature, heart rate, and respiration, along with a total of 160 types of raw biometric data feeding the algorithms. That information creates a score from 1 to 100 to determine the health status of the individual.
The team started testing the device during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it needed some fine-tuning. Initially, the device was only able to detect about 10% of COVID-19 cases. Accuracy improved as the algorithm continued to get feedback.
“We learned about algorithms, we learned about wearables. By December 2020, we had a fully functional algorithm used by about 11,500 people, well before a vaccine was available. We had a 73% chance of detecting the novel coronavirus,” Schneider said. “On average, it took about two and a half days for someone to show symptoms.
Going forward, the Department of Defense has secured funding to provide RATE devices to 4,500 new users. Now that the team has found a way to detect the novel coronavirus, DIU plans to improve the algorithm’s ability to detect other health problems.
DIU partnered with health technology company Philips to develop wearable devices using off-the-shelf products.
“We use wearables as they are. We don’t modify watches or rings. We push to Philips servers with cloud solutions, where the AI, or machine learning, happens,” said Schneider.
As the DIU moves through its programs, one of the next changes will be the Bring Your Own Device program. Schneider said he hopes it will give military personnel more choice in the types of watches and rings they use to collect data.
“We’ve also built three other commercial wearables. If someone has that watch or ring, we want them to keep theirs. I tell them what they don’t want. , I’m not going to tell you to buy something you don’t use,” he said.

The DIU team also plans to improve the server so that it can work with up to 1 million users and make more algorithmic improvements. Subsequent research programs will investigate a variety of diseases, including variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In the future, Schneider said he hopes RATE will progress to the point where it can detect new diseases before they reach the level of a national health crisis.

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2023/05/defense-departments-new-wearable-device-detects-illness-before-symptoms-appear/ Pentagon’s new wearable device detects illness before symptoms appear

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