Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Current Protector Scoring Systems (PSS) used in Taekwondo have many drawbacks. They do not account for all Taekwondo techniques, thereby encouraging athletes to perform only basic and repetitive Taekwondo techniques which are recognized by the system. This lack of combative creativity has decreased participation and spectator viewership. Due to these equipment limitations, the industry suffers as a whole. 20/20 Armor seeks to revive the Taekwondo industry through a novel scoring system which encourages active global participation. The main objective is to improve the PSS by implementing a high performance impact sensor within the chest protector and headgear. A piezoelectric foam sensor capable of measuring impact energy has been developed for this purpose. The aim is to develop a system which classifies and assesses all types of impact in order to display an impact-proportional score. Indeed, digital signal processing and analysis of sensor readings is fundamental to the detection and classification of impacts. Signal processing methods capable of providing robust analysis of sensor signals will be developed to remove noise and interferences, and to provide efficient pattern classification framework.