Laboratory evaluation of a wearable instrumented headband for rotational head kinematics measurement

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Tripathi, Anu, Wan, Yang, Malave, Sushant, Turcsanyi, Sheila, Fawzi, Alice Lux, Brooks, Alison, Kesari, Haneesh, Snedden, Traci, Ferrazzano, Peter, Franck, Christian, Carlsen, Rika
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Tripathi, Anu
Wan, Yang
Malave, Sushant
Turcsanyi, Sheila
Fawzi, Alice Lux
Brooks, Alison
Kesari, Haneesh
Snedden, Traci
Ferrazzano, Peter
Franck, Christian
Carlsen, Rika
author_facet Tripathi, Anu
Wan, Yang
Malave, Sushant
Turcsanyi, Sheila
Fawzi, Alice Lux
Brooks, Alison
Kesari, Haneesh
Snedden, Traci
Ferrazzano, Peter
Franck, Christian
Carlsen, Rika
contents Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) are a highly prevalent condition with heterogeneous outcomes between individuals. A key factor governing brain tissue deformation and the risk of mTBI is the rotational kinematics of the head. Instrumented mouthguards are a widely accepted method for measuring rotational head motions, owing to their robust sensor-skull coupling. However, wearing mouthguards is not feasible in all situations, especially for long-term data collection. Therefore, alternative wearable devices are needed. In this study, we present an improved design and data processing scheme for an instrumented headband. Our instrumented headband utilizes an array of inertial measurement units (IMUs) and a new data-processing scheme based on continuous wavelet transforms to address sources of error in the IMU measurements. The headband performance was evaluated in the laboratory on an anthropomorphic test device, which was impacted with a soccer ball to replicate soccer heading. When comparing the measured peak rotational velocities (PRV) and peak rotational accelerations (PRA) between the reference sensors and the headband for impacts to the front of the head, the correlation coefficients (r) were 0.80 and 0.63, and the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) values were 0.20 and 0.28, respectively. However, when considering all impact locations, r dropped to 0.42 and 0.34 and NRMSE increased to 0.5 and 0.41 for PRV and PRA, respectively. This new instrumented headband improves upon previous headband designs in reconstructing the rotational head kinematics resulting from frontal soccer ball impacts, providing a potential alternative to instrumented mouthguards.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_01939
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Laboratory evaluation of a wearable instrumented headband for rotational head kinematics measurement
Tripathi, Anu
Wan, Yang
Malave, Sushant
Turcsanyi, Sheila
Fawzi, Alice Lux
Brooks, Alison
Kesari, Haneesh
Snedden, Traci
Ferrazzano, Peter
Franck, Christian
Carlsen, Rika
Signal Processing
Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) are a highly prevalent condition with heterogeneous outcomes between individuals. A key factor governing brain tissue deformation and the risk of mTBI is the rotational kinematics of the head. Instrumented mouthguards are a widely accepted method for measuring rotational head motions, owing to their robust sensor-skull coupling. However, wearing mouthguards is not feasible in all situations, especially for long-term data collection. Therefore, alternative wearable devices are needed. In this study, we present an improved design and data processing scheme for an instrumented headband. Our instrumented headband utilizes an array of inertial measurement units (IMUs) and a new data-processing scheme based on continuous wavelet transforms to address sources of error in the IMU measurements. The headband performance was evaluated in the laboratory on an anthropomorphic test device, which was impacted with a soccer ball to replicate soccer heading. When comparing the measured peak rotational velocities (PRV) and peak rotational accelerations (PRA) between the reference sensors and the headband for impacts to the front of the head, the correlation coefficients (r) were 0.80 and 0.63, and the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) values were 0.20 and 0.28, respectively. However, when considering all impact locations, r dropped to 0.42 and 0.34 and NRMSE increased to 0.5 and 0.41 for PRV and PRA, respectively. This new instrumented headband improves upon previous headband designs in reconstructing the rotational head kinematics resulting from frontal soccer ball impacts, providing a potential alternative to instrumented mouthguards.
title Laboratory evaluation of a wearable instrumented headband for rotational head kinematics measurement
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01939