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）对加拿大人来说发挥着至关重要的作用，为加拿大在国内和国际上的安全和合作做出了贡献。下马士兵在完成与工作有关的高体力要求的任务时，身上携带重物和装备。考虑到这些职业需求，士兵在工作中遭受肌肉骨骼损伤的比例很高也就不足为奇了。在携带作战效能所必需的重载荷和相关的机动性缺陷之间存在权衡，这可能会降低性能并可能导致暴露于敌人火力的增加。此外，还有其他因素可能导致士兵机动性下降。这项工作的目的是确定如何管理和理解在高体力要求的任务中，士兵负重、肌肉骨骼损伤风险和机动性之间的关系。我们的目标是通过各种方法来探索这些问题，包括在训练演习中观察士兵，类似于在部署时所经历的暴露。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载的影响。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未测试过的新型加载场景中的机动性。这项工作的目标是有助于理解负重如何增加受伤风险并降低士兵的表现。与加拿大国防研究发展（DRDC）和加拿大Mawashi科技公司的强大的政府-工业伙伴关系将确保项目的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.