Offline wound assessment
Severity, care plan and equipment-matched interventions.
Defense · Sustainment · Whitepaper
Triage, then the window.
The decisive variable in a remote casualty is elapsed time to definitive care. NavTrax computes triage on the device, then answers the three questions that determine the outcome: how long is the window, where can the aircraft land, and which element has the capability.
01 / Problem statement
What we are designing against.
Remote casualty care fails on information, not on medicine.
Severity is assessed under stress by whoever is nearest. That is often not the most qualified person present, and the assessment drives everything downstream.
The window is not obvious. Daylight, weather, altitude, airframe availability and the distance to a facility with the required capability combine into a window that changes by the minute and is rarely computed under pressure.
Capability is assumed rather than matched. The nearest facility is frequently the wrong one, and the nearest element with a medic is frequently not the one that responds.
02 / Mechanism
The design, stated so it can be evaluated.
- On-device triage
- Camera-based wound assessment producing a severity classification, a care plan and the interventions the party is actually equipped for. Runs with no connection, because that is the condition it exists for.
- Window computation
- Daylight remaining, forecast at the extraction point, altitude performance and distance to each candidate facility, combined into an extraction window with an expiry.
- Landing-zone identification
- Candidate zones derived from the offline DEM and land cover — slope, obstruction and surface — rather than selected by eye from a satellite image.
- Capability matching
- Facilities are distinguished by capability, and elements by the medical qualification and equipment they carry. The recommendation names both.
- Prepared handoff packet
- Mechanism, severity, interventions applied, vitals trend, position, landing-zone options and party capability, assembled once and sent over whichever channel is up.
- Vitals trend, not a snapshot
- Wearable fusion against the casualty’s own baseline, so a trend is visible to the receiving clinician rather than a single reading.
- Human authorization
- Care recommendations are advisory. The system never claims a diagnosis, and it says so in the interface.
03 / Capabilities
What is actually delivered.
Extraction window with expiry
Daylight, weather, altitude and distance combined.
DEM-derived landing zones
Slope, obstruction and surface assessed, not eyeballed.
Capability-matched routing
The right facility, not the nearest one.
Element capability matching
Which team can actually act.
Trend-based vitals handoff
Against the casualty’s own baseline.
Advisory, stated plainly
Not a medical device, and the interface says so.
04 / Reference
| Input | Source | Offline |
|---|---|---|
| Daylight remaining | Computed from position and date | Yes |
| Weather at the LZ | Forecast models, cached | Cached |
| Altitude performance | Airframe profile plus DEM | Yes |
| LZ slope and obstruction | DEM and land cover | Yes |
| Facility capability | Medical layer | Yes |
| Element qualification | Party roster | Yes |
| Vitals trend | Wearable fusion | Yes |
05 / Process
Traced, node by node.
The window has an expiry.
On-device triage is Pro. Capability matching, window computation and the handoff packet are Enterprise.