Wireless mouthpieces gather impact data from football players
October 12, 2011 at 2:16 PM
Mouth guards like this one are being used by Stanford football players this season to record information about forces to the head. Image: X2 Impact
Christophe Mack, cofounder of X2 Impact, agrees that the mouth guards will be better than helmets at capturing the impact forces inside the head. The devices have six sensors measuring linear and rotational forces. They transmit information wirelessly to a monitoring device on the sidelines. A proprietary algorithm estimates the forces felt by the brain based on what the mouthpiece records. Mack says the mouthpieces don't shift around excessively during play because they are molded to a player's mouth. When they do shift, the system recognizes this and corrects for the movements. The mouthpieces also contain sensors that indicate whether they are in contact with mouth tissue. The company is partnering with Bite Tech to make the mouth guards commercially available next year. via technology review
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