A Posture Awareness Training Suit

"Special forces personnel are often subjected to physically abusive conditions during transit to and from operation sites. At best, these conditions result in accelerated fatigue and reduced mission performance, and at worst, in injuries such as musclestrain or stress fractures. It is our hypothesis that by maintaining optimal body postures during transit, the net shock levels on muscles and bones can be reduced, as well as better dissipated, thereby reducing the risks of injury and fatigue.The primary objectives of the proposed work are twofold: (1) develop a full-body motion recording suit that monitors the three-dimensional shock stress at critical locations on the body; and (2) minimize fatigue and injury by providing training andreal-time biofeedback to the individual to encourage advantageous body posturing. Our approach is to incorporate tri-axial accelerometers to measure shock, miniature low-power data acquisition hardware and software to record and store the shock data,wireless telemetry to simplify interface with a shore based computer for off line analysis, and real-time biofeedback to the user. Our eventual goal is to integrate this entire system into existing warfare gear, minimizing the additional logistics andphysical constraints that would result from additional garments. There are two primary beneficial outcomes of this technology, both related to the reduction of fatigue and injuries associated with high-impact