Experimental Verfication of Fall Simulation and Wearable Protect
Airbag
Youngho Lee, Beomguen Jo, Jeoungwoo Lee, Jaemin Kim, Soonmoon Jung, Taekyung Lee
and Junghwa Hong
Department of Control and Instrument Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Keywords: Fall Injury, Protective Device, Fall Simulation, Reducing Injury, Elderly Fall.
Abstract: Falling of the elderly becomes an important issue in the aging society. Falls could cause fractures which is
significant cause of morbidity and mortality. As a result, active protecting devices are being developed to
protect fallers’ body from severe injuries. In this study, as boundary condition and injury parameter are figured
out by experiments and simulation of falls situation, the wearable airbag for protecting from falls is designed
and make prototype of airbag. After that, compare contact force between fall simulation and experiments with
prototype airbag. It will be possible to establish the reliability of the development of the fall prevention system
for the elderly and to be the basis for the future development.
1 INTRODUCTION
Most people experiment fall accident by losing a
balance. Especially, more than 30% of the elderly
over the age of 65 years have experiences at least one
fall per year, which significantly deteriorates quality
of life. Based on movements, the elderly falls during
the level walking (43 %), going in-and-out of a
bathroom (30 %), during sitting down and standing
up from a seat (13 %), and in ascending and
descending stairs (15 %), which are the activities of
daily living (ADL) (W. L. Watson et al., 2011).
Particularly, it was found that a slip was a main cause
of falling injury. For the elderly, it was reported that
more than 66 % of the slip fallers have the hip injuries
in pelvis (Ambrose et al., 2013). However, it is still
unknown why the slip fallers in the old age have the
high injury value at the pelvic region. Many of these
falls may be avoided if fall risk assessment and
prevention tools where available as an integral part of
ADL. However, the fall risk assessment is still not
completed at this moment. Currently, active
protecting devices for fallers are developing to protect
fallers’ body from severe injuries as an alternative or
for a practical purpose. Developed equipment is
divided into passive and active type to protect the
body from falling. Research on active equipment is
divided into research on fall detection algorithms and
research on wearable airbags. In the case of wearable
airbags, there are studies to confirm the performance
of the airbag using a dummy. However, most studies
have designed the airbag only as a shock absorber
between the ground and the human body without
going through ergonomic design. In this study, the
wearable protect airbag is designed and is confirmed
through simulation of fall injury situation, and also,
compare with the fall experiments by using an
accelerometer and a gyro-sensor for an active
protecting device from the falling injuries.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Design of Wearable Protect Airbag
and Simulation of Falls
2.1.1 Design of the Wearable Protect Airbag
For falls simulations, human models, environments
and algorithms must be applied to simulations.
Pedestrian facet model (mathematical dynamic
model) provided by the MADYMO program (Release
7.6, TASS international, Netherlands). Wearable
protective equipment has high protection
performance when it is made of hard material, but
users prefer the soft material because they don’t want
to wear it (Honkanen et al., 2006). Also, since there
is a difference in the protection performance
according to the wearing method of the wearer or the
Lee, Y., Jo, B., Lee, J., Kim, J., Jung, S., Lee, T. and Hong, J.
Experimental Verification of Fall Simulation and Wearable Protect Airbag.
DOI: 10.5220/0006785202150218
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2018), pages 215-218
ISBN: 978-989-758-299-8
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2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
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