Poor Bob,” says Alexander Gruentzig, pointing at a mannequin with a screwdriver handle sticking out of its right shoulder. The founder of the Boston-area startup Legionarius stabbed Bob to demonstrate the abilities of a camouflage uniform shirt it’s wearing that contains a lightweight sensor layer developed by his company. The “smart shirt” has sent an alert to a tactical smartphone that shows the area of the wound, Bob’s vital signs and location. The aim, says Gruentzig, is to get help to wounded soldiers sooner.

“Ninety percent of preventable combat deaths are caused by massive hemorrhaging. If you can stop the bleeding in the first minute the chance of survival goes up tremendously,” Gruentzig told Forbes earlier this month at a defense trade show in Washington, D.C., where his technology was featured as one of the winners of the Army’s latest XTechSearch contest.

The smart uniform, which Legionarius has been developing with the help of the U.S. Special Operations Command and roughly $1.1 million in government funding, is part of a wave of work across the U.S. military to develop wearable technology to protect soldiers and better gauge their physical condition in real time.