Immunity from Threat Based on Measured Injury Causation

Head injuries and trauma are sustained by military, police and sports individuals where the shock or energy experienced by the victim cannot easily be quantified. The lack of sufficient data describing the peak or time history of the event prevents development of better protective devices and strategies to prevent injury. It is thus desirable to embed a recording device into the common everyday helmet worn by individuals where the magnitude and direction of a significant injury experience could be quantified and easily and quickly retrieved by medical and research professionals. Commercial-off-the-shelf data recorders are not suitable for this purpose because of cost, size, power, and maintenance issues; therefore an entirely new design is required to achieve the objectives. Diversified Technical Systems, Inc., proposes to develop a small, inexpensive, self-powered Impact Event Recorder (IER) that can be easily and cheaply added to head protective equipment for everyday use. The proposed IER would be maintenance free for at least two years and be capable of storing 200 millisecond time history arrays from over 80 impacts that exceed a predetermined threshold. This data would be immediately available to medical and research personnel in the field or lab for injury assessment and detailed study.