The Smart and Connected Health Program through the National Science Foundation recently awarded our team (in collaboration with several others) a grant titled Reducing Traumatic Brain Injury Risk with Smart Collision Detection and Mitigation. The grant began September 1, 2016 and will be focused on ,developing technology to better sense head impact information (velocity, direction), alert users of impending impact, position protective gear to best mitigate the impact, and send impact data to medical providers. The technology will be initially designed for integration into a helmet system to test capabilities in a sports setting, but ultimately the system will be versatile enough to apply to a wide range of potential head impact applications. The PI on the proposal is Mark Minor, co-PIs include David Carrier, Brittany Coats, Colby Hansen, Andrew Merryweather, Neal Patwari, and David Schurig. Dr. Coats’ group will help develop optimization algorithms and assess efficacy of the system on the reduction in brain strain.
