Biomechanics of military tasks through ambulatory monitoring

The specific aim of this project is to design and implement an abulatory monitor for the acquisition of biomechanical data, and to use this to assess military tasks in the field and under constrained conditions. Several soldier-specific tasks will be examined. The results will be used to develop a mathematical model for predicting motor performance in novel situations, and to establish a rationale for modifying the task or the constraints to re-instate an uncompromised biomechanical profile. An additional byproduct will be the reformatting of the empirical activity data for automatic incorporation into existing graphics models of the human figure to enable immediate viewing and graphical analysis of military tasks performed under frequently encountered constraints. The Phase I effort will consist of the following. An existing ambulatory monitor for acquiring kinematic data will be configured and adapted. Tasks and constraints will be defined to evaluate the kinematic performance of soldiers on two military related tasks, each under the normal and a likely constrained condition. A protocol incorporating these tasks will be designed and implemented experimentally with a group of subjects. The results will be analyzed to extract the kinematic differences in the two tasks under normal and constrained performance. The kinematic signals will be prepared for use in computerized graphics models. A specification document will be produced for the design of a biomechanical ambulatory monitor deliberately suited to this application.