The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting proposal abstracts for a three-phase program that seeks to develop a handheld sensor prototype designed to assess warfighter readiness by evaluating a soldier’s physiological states based on molecular biomarkers.
DARPA said Wednesday the tool developed under the four-year Smart Non-invasive Assays of Physiology program would be configured to the Department of Defense’s various needs for training, readiness assessment and mission planning.
“Portable, multi-plexed, multi-omic measurement technologies have the potential to enable ongoing monitoring of health and disease outside of traditional care delivery settings,” said Gopal Sarma, SNAP program manager at DARPA.
“While SNAP is focused on DoD applications in warfighter readiness, our plan is that the technologies generated will have a transformative impact on civilian medicine, public health, and national security,” Sarma added.
The first phase of the SNAP program will focus on the development of molecular sensors and related models used for predicting performance in a physical task and proof-of-concept capabilities for embedded sensing and readout.
The second phase will deal with building molecular sensors and associated models to predict performance in a cognitive task, while the third phase will focus on refining a fully integrated tool to predict performance in both physical and cognitive tasks.
“SNAP devices will provide an objective and reliable source of actionable information about a warfighter’s physiological readiness state, thus facilitating mission-critical risk mitigation,” Sarma said.
DARPA will hold a Proposers’ Day on July 21 and accept proposal abstracts through Aug. 11.
Full proposals are due Sept. 15.
