CSE498, Collaborative Design, Spring 2018
Computer Science and Engineering
Michigan State University

Urban Science is a consulting firm that helps clients identify and improve market share, sales and profitability, and customer loyalty. They work closely with their sister company, Talem Technologies, to build medical devices that empower disabled people.

Talem Technologies has an exoskeleton arm, the X-Ar, that enables wheelchair bound people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy to regain control of their arms and experience a much larger range of motion.

The X-Ar is purely mechanical and must be calibrated to a stable angle of incline, which is adjusted using a push button key fob. Unfortunately, using this key fob presents a significant challenge for some users.

Our Mobile Maestro app enables users to control their X-Ar from their mobile devices, which are often mounted on their wheelchairs. Using touch button or voice controls, users can adjusts the mount, lock and unlock the joints, enable auto leveling and voice controls, and put the app into standby mode.

Mobile Maestro also adjusts the incline calibration automatically when the user changes inclines and it provides user profiles to allow quick settings changes.

Our app supports both Apple iOS and Google Android devices. It is fully integrated with Siri and Google Assistant, allowing the user to access all touch button controls through them at any time. Furthermore, the user can add new voice commands to trigger any of the available actions.

Our Mobile Maestro app is written using Ionic for cross platform development and MySQL for data storage. The mobile devices communicate with the X-Ar using Bluetooth Low Energy.