While the use of AI in the military is likely to be focused on any number of strategic battle-oriented projects, it’s not surprising to find new AI technologies being enlisted for healthcare purposes, as well.

According to a recent article at Fedscoop, for example, the military’s Silicon Valley innovation office is developing an AI-enabled early warning system for detecting COVID-19 infections in military personnel.

In a partnership with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and Philips North America that began in June, the Defense Innovation Unit is using biometric data from wearable devices such as smartwatches in order to detect slight physiological changes in a person who has contracted the disease but is not symptomatic. With early detection, DIU hopes it can help stop the spread of infection within the military.

“By combining commercial technology, a rich data source and simple-to-use wearables, we are effectively providing a check-engine light on the military service member and getting that alert before they’re broken down with a disease. In military speak, we’re targeting left-of-cough awareness,” said Christian Whitchurch, director of DIU’s Human Systems Portfolio.

The dataset for the new project’s machine learning came from 165 biomarkers in 41,000 COVID-10 cases, the article notes.  Dubbed Rapid Analysis of Threat Exposure (RATE), the tool reads from the wearable to give an indication of infection before a person develops symptoms such as coughing, fever and a loss in taste or smell. The goal is to create the algorithms and data structure to work with any wearable device that can pull biometric data.

So far, DIU says the tests have already yielded positive results and “multiple” cases of COVID-19 have been caught early.

“While it is difficult to say how many [infections] were stopped” Lt. Col. Jeffrey “Mach” Schneider, a DIU program manager said in a statement, “this is an extremely useful tool for commanders to quickly isolate a COVID outbreak from rapidly spreading throughout their unit.”

For the time being, the system is only being used on a few thousand military personnel, with users of the system able to check their “score” via a secure web portal.

“The technology could further be applied in a civilian capacity by helping to monitor hospital patients for infection prior to clinical symptoms,” the DIU states, while Philips notes the system could also be retrained to have early detection for other diseases, according to Philips.

“The RATE science shows that physiological response to infection has similarities across different types of infectious agents, and we anticipate that this will also apply to RATE-COVID, giving us a useful early warning solution,” said Dr. Joe Frassica, chief medical officer and head of Philips Research North America.