Collision Prediction and Prevention in Contact Sports Using RFID tags and Haptic Feedback

TL;DR

This paper presents a RFID-based proximity sensor system with haptic feedback designed to alert football players of imminent collisions, aiming to reduce contact-related injuries by providing early warnings.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel RFID and haptic feedback system for real-time collision prediction and prevention in contact sports, validated through pilot tests and simulated NFL data.

Findings

Predicts collisions with less than 14% false alarms

Successfully tested with human participants in simulated scenarios

Validated contact prediction algorithm using NFL game data

Abstract

American football is a leading sport for contact-related injuries such as cervical spine injuries, some of which result from an unforeseen hit. The use of a feedback mechanism to alert an athlete of a potential hit may mitigate the risk for sport-related concussion and catastrophic injury by allowing athletes to effectively brace for an otherwise unforeseen impact. In this project, we created a proximity sensor system using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to send haptic feedback to the wearer before a potential impact. Our pilot test consisted of three participants who wore our novel sensor system, who ran simulated routes to represent player-to-player contact. Additionally, we used simulated data from a Network Live Football (NFL) league game to further validate our contact prediction algorithm. Results show that our method can predict players' collisions with less than 14% false-alarms.