A low-cost test rig for impact experiments on a dummy head

Anthropomorphic test dummies are commonly used to evaluate the potential harm to humans due to dangerous scenarios (e.g. car accidents). Furthermore, they have been used in sports to study the potential harm to the head (e.g. concussions) due to impacts. In this article, we describe the development of a low-cost dummy head experimental setup. The motivation behind this project is to quantify the potential harm to a child’s head due to impacts with a small robotic toy. Three severity indices can be estimated, namely, Head Acceleration Criterion (HIC), 3 ms criterion, and peak head acceleration. 3D-printed parts were used to develop the head. A tri-axial accelerometer embedded inside the head was used to measure the changes in accelerations. The developed head was placed inside a dedicated experimental bench. A data acquisition card was used to acquire the raw data while a computer system was used to store and then provide the analysis. The developed experimental setup was validated by producing comparable results to that of relevant previous studies.