DARPA Unveils Robotic Program to Halt Deadly Battlefield Bleeding

Uncontrolled bleeding inside the torso remains one of the leading causes of battlefield deaths, with many warfighters dying from injuries that could be survivable if surgical care were available sooner.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched the Medics Autonomously Stopping Hemorrhage program, known as MASH, to tackle this problem. The initiative is developing robotic systems guided by sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) to find and stop lethal internal bleeding with minimal human intervention.

"We owe it to our warfighters to give them the best possible chance of survival," said Dr. Adam Willis, MASH program manager. "In large-scale conflicts, many warfighters die from injuries that could be survivable if they could get to a surgeon quickly."

DARPA says the autonomous systems could keep injured troops alive for up to 48 hours, buying critical time for evacuation. The technology aims to function like a “GPS for the inside of the human body,” pinpointing bleeding in a complex organ environment and deploying existing tools to stop it.

The three-year program will first integrate sensors with robotic systems to locate hemorrhages, then develop autonomous software to halt them, pushing forward both robotic surgery and trauma medicine for combat zones.