US Army Wants Wearables to Detect Combat Injuries in Real Time

Military wearable devices won’t resemble existing favorites like FitBit and the Apple Watch—they'll collect real-time physiological data on muscle and brain injuries to help army doctors better triage the wounded or spot soldiers that are dangerously exhausted.

TO GO WITH AFGHANISTAN-US-ARMY-CONFLICT-FOCUS BY GUILLAUME DECAMME In this photograph taken on August 12, 2015, a US army soldier stands guard at an Afghan National Army (ANA) base in the Khogyani district in the eastern province of Nangarhar. From his watchtower in insurgency-wracked eastern Afghanistan, US army Specialist Josh Whitten doesn't have much to say about his Afghan colleagues. "They don't come up here anymore, because they used to mess around with our stuff. "Welcome to Forward Operating Base Connelly, where US troops are providing training and tactical advice to the 201st Afghan army corps as they take on the Taliban on the battlefield. AFP PHOTO / Wakil Kohsar Photo credit should read WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images

Last week, the Department of Defense unveiled a $171 million partnership with a consortium of tech giants—including Apple, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin—to develop electronics and wearables for the military. A major goal of the project is to create tools that can improve the health monitoring of troops in combat.

The wearable devices the military wants to develop won’t resemble the existing favorites like FitBit and the Apple Watch, which are devoted to quantifying general fitness metrics like your heart rate and how many steps you’ve taken. Instead, real-time physiological data on muscle and brain injuries could help army doctors better triage those wounded in combat or even just spot soldiers that are dangerously stressed or exhausted.

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