Personnel Borne Blast Dosimeter

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) or mild TBI (mTBI) resulting from direct impact or indirectly from blast waves represents a significant threat to personnel in combat or blast intensive training environments. Due to the complexity of brain injuries, onset of symptoms may not occur immediately or be initially identifiable, posing a potential threat to both the injured soldier and surrounding personnel. Direct measurement of key biomechanical head impact variables from these blasts or impacts in real combat situations has been significantly limited by the measurement, storage and power technologies available in the correct form factor. Furthermore, traditional approaches of data collection and post-processing are too limited (i.e. not enough memory, too large and expensive) and time consuming to provide clinically relevant information that can be used by medics for treatment decisions. The purpose of this SBIR proposal is to develop the Head Injury Dosimeter (HID) - a low-cost, retrofittable, unobstrusive, and fieldable solution for continuous monitoring and alerting of potentially injurious threats to the head from blasts or direct impacts.