NASA is teaming up with Google to develop an AI-powered medical assistant called the Crew Medical Officer Digital Assistant (CMO-DA) to support astronauts on long-duration space missions. This digital doctor-in-training is designed to understand speech, text, and images, and provide accurate diagnoses and treatment recommendations without needing real-time communication with Earth.
The CMO-DA system can process multimodal input, including speech, text, and image-based symptom descriptions, allowing astronauts to interact with it in various ways. It provides differential diagnoses, step-by-step treatment plans, and guidance on medication dosage in low-gravity environments. The system is also designed for incremental upgrades to integrate biometric sensors and diagnostic devices, ensuring it stays effective in evolving space environments.
In early trials, CMO-DA demonstrated diagnostic accuracy ranging from 74% to 88% in simulated scenarios, including ankle injuries, ear pain, and abdominal pain. Beyond space exploration, CMO-DA has potential applications in remote or resource-limited areas on Earth, such as rural healthcare and disaster relief. The technology could also benefit military operations and underserved urban areas, highlighting its versatility and potential impact.
NASA and Google are working together to refine the CMO-DA model, integrating data from medical devices and training it to recognize space-specific health problems. The partnership aims to prepare astronauts for missions where radio signals take up to 20 minutes each way, making quick consultations with doctors on Earth unfeasible. As space exploration advances, innovations like CMO-DA will likely have ripple effects on Earth, shaping the future of healthcare delivery worldwide.
