Patent ID: 8797165

Claim:
A system for monitoring impact-related acceleration of a body part of a plurality of players engaged in a team sporting activity, each individual player wearing a piece of protective sports equipment adjacent the body part while the individual player is engaged in the team sporting activity, the system comprising: a plurality of reporting units, wherein each reporting unit is positioned within a piece of said protective sports equipment worn adjacent a body part of an individual player, wherein each reporting unit has a plurality of sensing devices arranged to measure a direction and a magnitude of acceleration of the individual player's body part resulting from an impact applied to the protective sports equipment of the individual player and to generate body part acceleration input data, each reporting unit includes a control unit that converts the body part acceleration input data to signals, each reporting unit further includes an encoder that encodes the converted signals with a unique player identifier prior to transmission by the reporting unit; a controller that receives said encoded signals transmitted from each reporting unit, wherein the controller decodes said encoded signals and then calculates a body part acceleration result, and wherein the controller also calculates a direction of the impact and a location of the impact resulting in the body part acceleration; and a signaling device that provides an alert when said calculated body part acceleration result exceeds a predetermined value.