System and method for non-invasive measurement of mechanical properties of cortical bone

A method for non-invasive measurement of mechanical properties of a cortical bone of an individual, comprising:

• positioning the body part of the individual containing the cortical bone of interest on a mounting system and applying restraints;
• and
• placing a test probe unit against the region of the bone for determining the mechanical properties, wherein the test probe unit comprises one or more test probes, one or more vibrator units, one or more sensors, and a controller having one or more processors and a memory containing computer readable and executable instructions which, when executed by a processor, allows the controller to perform multiple functions comprising:
• f) applying a static load to a test site;
• g) exciting the test probe unit with a stimulus while recording force f(t) and acceleration a(t);
• h) processing the collected force and acceleration data;
• i) fitting a model to the processed data by applying an optimizer/solver that imposes one or more constraints on the estimated model parameters;
• and
• j) calculating EI, related output variables, or both.