About Us

Mission Statement

This team is looking to advance the field of powered exoskeleton technology to a practical and useful level. Most powered exoskeletons are confined to a lab area and are not usable by a person in a real world setting. Our purpose is to change that by designing and building an exoskeleton that can help the user with everyday tasks and make a difference in the real world. These practical solutions will help show the technology can be useful outside of just labs and military applications, and are a major step toward making this a mainstream technology that is within the reach of anyone who needs it. Whether you want to use mills and drills as a part of the mechanical team, crimp and solder wires with the electrical team, apply robotics libraries with the software team, or show off your design skills through the business team, there's a place for you here at STARX!

Founding

STARX was launched in the Spring of 2015 by students at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering with the vision of designing and building a powered exoskeleton that could augment the strength of a healthy adult. Our high-level plan is to design a load-bearing leg exoskeleton, then design a strength-augmenting upper-body exoskeleton. We would then integrate the two into a full suit. We are currently a team of approximately 25 students from a multitude of disciplines.

From left to right: Kevin Rabideau, Niraj Patel, Anne Gu

From Leadership

Design defines us! There's nothing better than coming together as a team to rack our brains and innovate the solutions of tomorrow one step at a time. Our goal is not only to build the best exoskeleton, but also to build the best engineers, designers, and leaders. Feel free to reach out to anyone on the team at any time with ideas to improve our processes, culture, or anything else!

Our Goals

  • Over the 2022-2023 academic year, we hope to:

  • Make improvements to the design and control algorithm of our Leg Exoskeleton by characterizing the gait cycle

  • Experiment with Passive Exo Design

  • Create a printed circuit board for our Arm Monitor

  • Convert IMU code from python to C++/ROS.