Research and Development

Articulate Instruments is a vehicle for research with a goal of making articulatory analysis and biofeedback universally available.  Our research is conducted and developed into products that are affordable, reliable and available for research groups worldwide. We have focus on a number of areas:

• Developing new instrumentation For example there is no instrument available to measure the glottal opening and closing gesture where closed glottis transitions to partly open where phonation can start and then to open glottis for unvoiced sounds. Articulate Instruments is working on producing an electroPhotoGlottoGraph that produces reliable glottal opening and closing measure.
• Image and data analysis For example developing the first  reliable and accurate pose estimation of Tongue, mandible and hyoid.  Developing, unique and neurophysiologically based glossometric analysis of that data.
• Theoretical research  to establish principled foundations for the direction of travel in all the practical developments the company undertakes. For example, the work on anatomy and neurophysiology of the tongue revealing a much more subtle control than the 8 muscle model promoted in text books. Also biomechanical modelling to validate the predictions of that new anatomy and research into motor control to understand how motor commands control these neuromuscular compartments. 
• Investigation of the potential of ultrasound applied to swallowing function and assessment. Central to this work is automatic tracking of hyoid movement during the swallow and observation and tracking where possible of the tongue.