DARPA Surgical Competition (DSC) Second Industry Day

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office (BTO) is hosting a Second Industry Day for the DARPA Surgical Competition (DSC) under solicitation number DARPA-SN-27-02. This virtual event is scheduled for November 4, 2026, from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time, with a registration deadline of November 2, 2026. While this notice is not a formal solicitation for proposals, it serves to engage potential competitors in a competition aimed at establishing the state of the art for open, robotic trauma surgery and developing a minimum viable product for scalable, autonomous robotic surgical assistance. The competition will evaluate platforms across three primary performance lanes: Component Gates, which assess system safety and autonomy through medical knowledge, physical capability, and rapid learning; Surgical Collaboration, which tests the ability to work alongside a human surgeon; and Surgical Independence, which evaluates the platform's ability to independently plan and execute end-to-end trauma procedures. The DSC will be conducted at the unclassified level. Technical and administrative inquiries are directed to Program Manager Jeremy Pamplin at SurgicalCompetition@darpa.mil.