Risk Assessment for Frontline Troops

The main aim of our work is to create a decision support tool that will help keep our troops safer while fighting in far field theatres. We first focus on injuries incurred for troops moving along roads, in armored vehicles, as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED), though our solution can easily be expanded to foot troops and air vehicles. Our solution is a risk assessment and mission planning tool for frontline troops (RAFT) that provides an easy interface for mission planners as to the risk associated with particular mission profiles, and can also suggest alternate profiles. Our system is first and foremost based on what is truly needed in the field, and this approach will be rooted in our work in Phase I. Anticipating the need for rapid path analysis, our RAFT system has at its core a heuristic approach to risk assessment that is based on past and recent incident reports and field intelligence. Our team is experienced in all aspects required to make the RAFT system a useful and usable device in the hands of the end users in the near term; and comprises engineers with extensive knowledge in injury analysis, data mining, data analysis, human factors, user interfaces, and complex system design.