Hardware Design for Head Impact Assessment in Contact Sports
Gebreyesus, Yonas Yosef (2019)
Gebreyesus, Yonas Yosef
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019060314438
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019060314438
Tiivistelmä
Head Impact Injuries have been the most common causes of Concussion in heavy contact sports. Concussion affects the brain, resulting impairment of neurological functions, and is usually under-reported or underestimated by standard neuroimaging tools. Therefore, in addition to the clinical methods it has been essential to characterize the kinematics involved in head impact injuries. The objective of this research was to design a hardware that could be mounted inside a helmet, measure the severity level of head impact injuries that could cause concussion and display measurements in real-time to team personnel monitoring the impact levels.
Methods of accelerometry and telemetry were applied in which linear head acceleration (g-force) and rotational head accelerations data would be measured and transferred via wireless communication method. After setting the specifications the design process passed through three phases. In the component selection phase various wireless communication protocols, sensors, system processors, interfaces, power and memory requirements were compared, analyzed and selected. In the second phase, a prototype using breakout boards was developed and tested for operation. After successful implementation of the second phase, the PCB design with IC (Integrated Circuit) components based on ARM Cortex M4 32-bit processor proceeded. PCB schematics and layout of the final prototype design with IC chips was completed and a sample was printed at a milling machine in the school premise.
The designed PCB was small enough to fit inside helmets (with a size of 42 mm X 31.5 mm) and it had ultra-low power consumption as set in the objective. It was able to send real time data of linear and rotational head acceleration via a low energy Bluetooth communication protocol. The hardware testing and software integration of the final device shall proceed at the latter stage of the prototype development.
Methods of accelerometry and telemetry were applied in which linear head acceleration (g-force) and rotational head accelerations data would be measured and transferred via wireless communication method. After setting the specifications the design process passed through three phases. In the component selection phase various wireless communication protocols, sensors, system processors, interfaces, power and memory requirements were compared, analyzed and selected. In the second phase, a prototype using breakout boards was developed and tested for operation. After successful implementation of the second phase, the PCB design with IC (Integrated Circuit) components based on ARM Cortex M4 32-bit processor proceeded. PCB schematics and layout of the final prototype design with IC chips was completed and a sample was printed at a milling machine in the school premise.
The designed PCB was small enough to fit inside helmets (with a size of 42 mm X 31.5 mm) and it had ultra-low power consumption as set in the objective. It was able to send real time data of linear and rotational head acceleration via a low energy Bluetooth communication protocol. The hardware testing and software integration of the final device shall proceed at the latter stage of the prototype development.