NFL Putting Sensors in Players’ Helmets

In an attempt to gather more data on what happens to players’ heads when they are hit while playing football, the National Football League (NFL) is planning to put sensors in the helmets. They are the same type of sensors used by the Army to evaluate concussive events that could lead to traumatic brain injury. The NFL wants to use the sensors, altered slightly, in football helmets to track the severity of blows to the head, so players may be taken out of games before severe brain trauma, namely concussions, occurs.

In a July 25 press release, Lt. Col. Frank Lozano said that the Army is working with the National Football League to help the league develop ways to protect football players from traumatic brain injury (TBI) in much the same way the service hopes to protect its own soldiers from those same injuries. Lozano says there are similarities between the head injuries suffered by football players and those suffered by soldiers.

The NFL is very interested in having a similar type of capability that would aid doctors in diagnosing and understanding football players’ experience of concussions and blunt force trauma on the football field so that they can better offer medical aid at the appropriate time to those players.

The sensors are manufactured by the British-based security company BAE Systems, and are called Headborne Energy Analysis and Diagnostic Systems—more commonly referred to as HEADS. Placed inside of a soldier’s helmet and weighing just two ounces, the sensor collects data of hits from explosive devises and other blunt impacts, including impact location, magnitude, duration, blast pressure, ambient temperature and the exact times of impacts. That data can be collected and used in research to further develop an understanding of the relationship between concussive events and traumatic brain injury.