Understanding and managing the relationship between soldier burden, mobility and susceptibility to enemy fire in the Canadian Armed Forces

加拿大武装部队（CAF）对加拿大人起着至关重要的作用，为加拿大国内和国际的安全与合作做出了贡献。下马的士兵在完成与体力要求高的工作相关的任务时，身上背负着沉重的负荷和装备。考虑到这些职业要求，士兵在工作中经历高比例的肌肉骨骼损伤并不奇怪。在作战效能所需的重型载荷和相关的机动性缺陷之间存在一种权衡，这会降低性能并可能导致增加对敌方火力的防御能力。此外，还有其他因素可能导致士兵流动性下降。这项工作的目的是确定如何管理和理解之间的关系，沉重的进行负荷，肌肉骨骼损伤的风险和机动性的士兵在高体力要求的任务。我们的目标是通过各种方法来探索这些问题，包括观察士兵在训练演习中的暴露情况。基于这些经验，我们将开发系统的测试程序，以隔离构成工作相关任务的运动，并在实验室环境中测试负荷的影响。最后，我们将使用统计程序和机器学习方法来预测士兵在以前没有测试过的新装载场景中的机动性。这项工作的目标是帮助了解负重如何增加士兵受伤的风险并降低他们的表现。与加拿大国防研究发展局（DRDC）和加拿大Mawashi科技公司建立的强有力的政府-工业伙伴关系将确保项目成功以及研究成果的双重用途。

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) play an essential role to Canadians, contributing to the security andco-operation of Canada both domestically and internationally. Dismounted soldiers carry heavy loads andequipment on their body while completing work-related tasks with heavy physical demands. Given theseoccupational demands, it is not surprising that soldiers experience a high proportion of musculoskeletal injuriesat work. A trade-off exists between carrying heavy loads that are necessary for operational effectiveness andthe associated deficits in mobility, which can reduce performance and potentially lead to an increased exposureto enemy fire. In addition, there are other factors that can contribute to reductions in mobility in soldiers. Theaim of this work is to determine how to manage and understand the relationships between heavy carried loads,musculoskeletal injury risk and mobility in soldiers during highly physically demanding tasks. We aim toexplore these issues through a variety of approaches, including observing soldiers during training exercises thatare similar to exposures experienced while deployed. Based on these experiences, we will develop systematictesting procedures to isolate the movements that make up the work-related tasks and test the effect of load in alaboratory environment. Finally, we will use statistical procedures and machine learning approaches in order topredict the mobility of soldiers in novel loading scenarios that were not previously tested. The goal of thiswork is to contribute to an understanding of how carrying heavy loads can increase injury risk and reduceperformance in soldiers. Strong government-industry partnerships with Defence Research DevelopmentCanada (DRDC) and Canadian firm Mawashi Science and Technology will ensure project success as well asthe dual-use of the research findings.