Ballistic helmets

For several decades, PhDs and professors from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, later founders of MIPS, studied the relationship between brain injuries and helmet design at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The research results made the researchers realize that in most crashes and falls, a person's head (or helmet) hits the ground at an oblique angle. Thus, although oblique impacts were much more common than linear radial impacts, there was less research on the rotational trauma that occurs when the helmet hits the ground or another object at an angle. This was a breakthrough that would change the traditional way of designing helmets, which until then had been based on the less common linear radial impacts.

Many years of research and testing preceded the launch of the first helmet with the Mips® protection system in 2007. Drawing on data from their extensive research, the founders set out to find new ways to minimize the effects of oblique impacts. The breakthrough solution was eventually to place a low-friction layer inside the helmet to reduce the negative effects of rotation on the head. After many years of further research, testing and development, they launched what is now known as the Mips® protection system - a unique helmet construction technology that provides extra protection for the head.