Fans love American football for its bone-crunching hits. But after a 2010-2011 season filled with violent collisions that saw several players sustain severe concussions 鈥� including stars from both teams playing in this weekend鈥檚 Super Bowl 鈥� the risk of brain injury for anyone who plays the game is front and centre.
National Football League (NFL) football commissioner Roger Goodell has issued assuring players and fans alike that the organisation is committed to protecting all players, not just professionals. Meanwhile, the players themselves rules changes designed to prevent head injuries.
The real solution is likely to come in the form of a new crop of 鈥渟mart鈥� helmets. While not expected to take the field until next season at the earliest, these new rigs come lined with sensors that can detect dangerous impacts, send warnings to sideline coaches, or even upload data to medical centres for real-time analysis.
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What鈥檚 wrong with the current helmets?
Current helmets are designed to prevent heavy blows penetrating the outer shell and causing skull fractures or other serious brain injuries, but they are less good at stopping the force of lower-level impacts from passing through to the brain and causing concussions. Helmet manufacturers are now working on new designs that incorporate the latest materials and sensing technology in order to provide protection from both kinds of injuries.
Hasn鈥檛 this always been a problem? What鈥檚 changed?
Our medical understanding of low-level impacts has improved. 鈥淲e鈥檙e used to hearing 鈥榠t鈥檚 just a concussion鈥�,鈥� says , who researches sport-related brain injury at the University of North Carolina and advises the NFL. 鈥淲e now know that there is a long-term effect of concussion.鈥� As we鈥檝e learned more about the effects of concussion, new techniques and materials have also enabled the design of more advanced helmets. 鈥淎ll helmet manufacturers are working hard to change their designs,鈥� adds Guskiewicz.
There is also a growing political interest in the safety of football helmets. Earlier this month, senator Tom Udall asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the 鈥渕isleading safety claims and deceptive practices鈥� of helmet manufacturers. Riddell, official helmet manufacturer for the NFL, dismisses these allegations.
鈥淲e believe his statements and allegations are unfounded and unfair,鈥� Riddell president Dan Arment said in response. 鈥淩iddell has exceeded all of the industry standards and conducts and submits to more rigorous testing than most companies in other industries.鈥�
How will new helmets offer more protection?
In 2007 Riddell launch their Head Impact Telemetry System (HITS), a helmet outfitted with accelerometers to sense the severity of forces encountered by players during a collision. Now, the company has teamed up with Intel to make HITS more useful. 鈥淲e鈥檙e taking the output of the HITS system and using it in a different way,鈥� says John Hengeveld, director of marketing for high-performance computing at Intel. His team have adapted software normally used to crash-test cars with a model of impacts on the football field, allowing them to simulate player collisions.
The team ultimately hope to pull real-time data from the field to the sidelines and quickly identify problematic impacts. These impacts can then be re-run in software, allowing medical staff to determine the extent of any injuries. If players are at risk, new brain scanning equipment can complete a diagnostic scan in under a minute without the player leaving the stadium. 鈥淵ou can catch it before the problem becomes more significant,鈥� explains Hengeveld.
While the benefits to professional football players are obvious, Hengeveld hopes that a wider group could benefit. 鈥淚鈥檓 far more interested in the hundreds of thousands of kids playing football every weekend,鈥� he says. These high-school games are unlikely to have access to the computing might of the NFL, but Hengeveld suggests that coaches could upload data to a cloud computing service for analysis from the sidelines. 鈥淭he cloud can provide real value in protecting kids鈥� lives,鈥� he adds. 鈥淧arents will want this for their kids.鈥�
This type of automated system must be backed up by strong medical evidence, says Hengeveld. Both he and Guskiewicz stress the importance of avoiding false negatives 鈥� the simulation showing that a player is fine when in fact they鈥檝e been injured by an impact.
Is anyone else working on new helmets?
The NFL estimates that 75 per cent of its players wear Riddell helmets, with the rest coming from other large manufacturers, but there are also independent efforts to improve the football helmet. The outer shell of traditional helmets is made from a single piece of plastic, covering a layer of hard, protective padding and another of soft padding to give a comfortable fit. , a designer based in North Carolina, has come up with a his own design, essentially creating a helmet within a helmet.
笔谤颈苍肠颈辫鈥檚 has an outer shell made from a number of plastic segments covering a layer of hard padding, but within that is another plastic shell, again covering two layers of hard and then soft padding. All of this fits into a helmet no larger than the ones players are used to wearing. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no helmet out there like it,鈥� he says.
Each padding segment is made from a hollow section of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), a material normally found in running shoes, with foam rubber filling the cavities. Varying the mix of the two materials allows Princip to customise the density of the padding, providing players with extra protection from injuries in particular problem areas. The segmented design also spreads the force of impacts more efficiently than a single shell, dampening the effects of hard blows.
The Bulwark helmet doesn鈥檛 contain the sensors used by Riddell, but Princip prefers an alternative approach. 鈥淚 think the HITS system is a great idea, but it鈥檚 not practical,鈥� he explains. HITS helmets costs $1000 each, making it expensive to outfit an entire team, so Princip suggests using a single accelerometer in the helmet鈥檚 mouth guard instead. 鈥淚 think that鈥檚 the way to go, it鈥檚 much more affordable.鈥�
When will we see these new helmets on the field?
Princip has been working on the Bulwark design for the past two years and is currently developing the second prototype version, which he plans to test in the spring. He intends to eventually license the technology to other manufacturers, and hopes to eventually see his helmets used at a Super Bowl. 鈥淭hat would be amazing,鈥� he says.
Hengeveld expects that Intel鈥檚 cloud technology, combined with HITS, will hit the market in the next five to 10 years 鈥� any sooner is unlikely, as all new helmets require stringent safety tests. He also expects that economies of scale will make the HITS system much more affordable, even at the high-school level. Riddell say they plan to release a helmet with a new, cheaper version of HITS at some point in 2011.
