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Description

Safety in sports has become an increasingly important topic, and new technologies are constantly being developed to support the goal of keeping athletes safe. Football players are notorious for experiencing concussions during their athletic career, and due to this there have been many helmet variations to protect players from head injuries. The proposed project seeks to use piezoelectrics, materials that produce an electric charge when subjected to mechanical stress, to implement force sensing technology into the helmets to create a visual display of the contact force. This aims to shift from post-event data analysis to immediate feedback. Specifically, a light mounted on the back of the helmet will activate when impacts exceed recommended thresholds, providing a rapid and intuitive indication of potentially dangerous head injuries. This technology will eliminate uncertain judgement calls based on how detrimental the contact appeared and instead give immediate feedback on the force that was sustained. The project will further the use of piezoelectrics in the athletics domain, while also creating new safety equipment that does not interfere with the game itself.

Publication Date

4-30-2026

Keywords

piezoelectric, injury detection

Implementing Piezoelectrics to Enhance Injury Detection in Contact Sports

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