Evaluation of sampling rates for measuring head impacts when using wearable devices in sport

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

Physical reconstructions of head impacts are fundamental in understanding head injury biomechanics. While laboratory and computational experiments have been instrumental in this field, these techniques rely on many assumptions and require validation from real-world data. To address this, advancements in sensing technology has enabled inertial sensors to quantify head kinematics across various sporting domains. However, a prevalent issue with current wearable technology is the potential for significant errors in the captured kinematics. An often overlooked yet crucial cause of this disparity is sampling rate. If the sampling rate is too low, the peak value of an impact event may be missed. This study therefore aims to evaluate the average error in peak linear acceleration (PLA), peak angular velocity (PAV), and peak angular acceleration (PAA), associated with sampling rates across various impact scenarios; ultimately providing a resource to improve wearble sensor configuration.