When American TV audiences tuned into M*A*S*H in the 1970s, they followed the fictional escapades of Army doctors improvising medical care in a Korean War field hospital.
Now, decades later, the Pentagon’s real-life version of “MASH“—short for Medics Autonomously Stopping Hemorrhage—seeks to do something the show’s surgeons never could: enlist autonomous robotic systems to save soldiers’ lives on the battlefield.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has officially launched the MASH program through its Biological Technologies Office (BTO), targeting one of the most lethal threats in combat: uncontrolled internal bleeding.
In large-scale combat operations, thousands of troops die from non-compressible torso hemorrhage (NCTH), a type of injury that cannot be treated with a tourniquet or external bandage. With evacuation times often delayed in large-scale combat operations, DARPA says new solutions are needed to bridge the gap between injury and advanced surgical care on the battlefield.
“The MASH program aims to develop capabilities which do not require a surgeon and can occur in forward medical facilities to stabilize NCTH by autonomously finding and stopping bleeding in the torso,” DARPA explained in a recently released special program notice.
The deceptively simple program description masks what the agency itself calls a “DARPA-hard problem.” The challenge is how to find and stop bleeding deep inside the abdomen without the steady hands of a surgeon, amidst the chaos of battle.
To meet this demand, DARPA envisions teams of medical robots outfitted with advanced sensors, AI-driven navigation, and surgical tools capable of intervening inside the body.
“Our goal with MASH is to give robots guided by advanced sensors, the power of artificial intelligence to locate and stop non-compressible torso hemorrhage, the leading cause of potentially survivable death on the battlefield,” MASH program manager, Lt. Col. Adam Willis, said in a video released by DARPA.
The program is structured as a 36-month effort with two phases, encouraging multi-disciplinary teams that bring together trauma surgeons, roboticists, AI developers, and biomedical engineers.
DARPA is asking program participants to build on existing or in-development medical robotic platforms that already have a regulatory pathway, ensuring the devices are closer to real-world deployment.
In announcing the effort, DARPA emphasized that MASH’s goal isn’t to replace doctors, but to extend survival times for injured soldiers until they can be evacuated. “MASH seeks to stop bleeding for 48+ hours, which is a crucial step to stabilize NCTH casualties and provide significantly more time for evacuation to higher levels of care,” DARPA notes.
The technology vision includes a range of potential approaches, from laparoscopic or endovascular procedures to hybrid methods that use external and internal tools guided by AI.
Signal processing and autonomy will be key, with robots expected to detect and localize bleeds, navigate around organs, and carry out complex medical interventions without direct surgeon control.
DARPA’s track record suggests that bold ambitions can translate into real-world breakthroughs. As The Debrief has previously reported, the agency has recently funded projects where robots “fed” on other machines to heal and adapt, as well as implant-based therapies that have offered hope for curing treatment-resistant PTSD. Even the da Vinci surgical robot, now a mainstay in many operating rooms worldwide, traces its roots back to DARPA’s early 1990s investments in robotic medical systems.
The program also highlights the Pentagon’s increasing emphasis on preparing for future large-scale conflicts. In wars against near-peer adversaries, evacuation by helicopter or rapid transfer to a surgical hospital may no longer be assured. DARPA’s planners are betting that autonomous robotic medics could stabilize casualties in forward operating bases or even mobile units operating under fire.
A Proposers Day for researchers and companies interested in joining the MASH program will be held virtually on September 18, 2025. Prospective program partners can utilize this opportunity to showcase their technical capabilities and explore potential collaborations. DARPA has encouraged proposals from non-traditional performers, including startups, universities, and first-time defense contractors.
Beyond the battlefield, the technologies developed under MASH could have far-reaching applications. Civilian trauma care, remote emergency medicine, and even space exploration, where immediate surgical care may be impossible, stand to benefit from robotic systems capable of autonomously stabilizing a hemorrhage.
Still, the path forward won’t be easy. Allowing robots to perform autonomous surgery on living patients raises questions of regulation, safety, and ethics. Today’s hospital-based surgical robots remain firmly under the direct control of physicians, with no independent decision-making. Handing over that level of autonomy by asking a machine to navigate a damaged abdomen and stop bleeding on its own marks a dramatic leap forward, one DARPA hopes to achieve through careful engineering, rigorous testing, and step-by-step milestones.
As the program kicks off, DARPA is keen to evoke the urgency of its namesake. Just as the doctors in M*A*S*H patched together wounded soldiers in improvised conditions, the modern MASH program seeks to extend life-saving care where it’s needed most. Only this time, the medics will be robots.
If successful, DARPA’s MASH program could ensure that more soldiers survive injuries once thought untreatable outside of an operating room, rewriting the rules of battlefield medicine and perhaps bringing a little science fiction into reality.
“We owe it to our warfighters to give them the best possible chance of survival,” Lt. Col. Willis said in a statement. “In large-scale conflicts, many warfighters die from injuries that could be survivable if they could get to a surgeon quickly.”
Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com