Articulate Instruments

Articulate instruments Limited was founded in September 2003 by Dr Alan Wrench with a remit to achieve medical device certification for the electropalatography (EPG) instrument developed by Professor Bill Hardcastle at Queen Margaret University. The university licenced its IP for this product to the company. EPG systems were sold to all cleft palate centres in the UK and Ireland. Sales gradually declined over the next ten years and certification overheads increased so a decision was taken to cease production in 2013. The company shifted focus to development of ultrasound which it had been developing since 2005.

The company set up an exclusive worldwide distribution agreement with Telemed medical systemsfor the application of ultrasound to speech and swallowing research and biofeedback. Telemed systems are unique in providing hardware synchronisation which permits precise alignment of audio and ultrasouond images. The company has since carried out pioneering work in ultrasound image feature extraction and tongue contour estimation. It has also developed methods for precisely synchronising ultrasound, lip video, EMA and any instrument with analogue output that can be recorded on a multichannel soundcard. The company continues to innovate, developing software and new instrumentation.

In 2021 Jonathan Balch-Tomes joined the company and from August 2025 he became managing director taking over from Professor Wrench.