A collaborative journey to design a modular, portable X-ray solution for real-world healthcare challenges
CLIENT
A South African medical imaging innovator
sector
Medical Devices
Read time
10 Min
Overview
The Challenge
The Solution
The Results
The numbers
The Challenge
A South African medical imaging innovator, known for delivering rapid, full-body, low-dose X-ray scans, sought to expand access to its life-saving technology. However, the existing system presented critical barriers to broader adoption:
Bulky & Static: The large, fixed-installation design made the system unsuitable for rural clinics, mobile units, or smaller healthcare facilities.
Rigid Architecture: Tightly integrated system components complicated upgrades, slowed innovation, and made maintenance costly.
High Infrastructure Needs: Dependence on 3-phase power posed reliability issues in regions with unstable electricity supply.
High Cost: Custom hardware and installation processes placed the solution out of reach for many healthcare providers.
To remain competitive and address the needs of under-resourced environments, the company required a complete system rethink—one that preserved clinical excellence while enabling flexibility, scalability, and affordability.
The Solution
Opti-Num Solutions led the end-to-end system redesign—engineering a modular, distributed, embedded systems-based architecture that unlocked new levels of adaptability and control.
Key Contributions:
Architectural Leadership Designed a fully modular and distributed embedded control system—allowing components to be independently upgraded or enhanced without reimplementing the entire codebase.
Algorithm Design & Orchestration: Developed and implemented control algorithms for each hardware component, as well as the coordination logic that manages the operation of the entire system.
Model-Based Development: Built the control logic using Simulink and Stateflow, enabling early-stage simulation and rapid iteration. Code was then auto-generated for low-cost embedded processors, reducing hardware costs without compromising reliability.
Scalability by Design: The new architecture supports phased capability expansion, feature updates, and future enhancements—making the system truly adaptable to evolving clinical needs.
Simulation to Deployment: Used Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing to bridge the gap between virtual design and real-world implementation, ensuring the system behaved as expected under real conditions.
The Outcome (In Progress)
The re-engineered system retains the image quality, speed, and dose efficiency of its predecessor—while unlocking new possibilities:
Portable, scalable design enables use in mobile units and resource-limited clinics.
Modular embedded architecture ensures long-term sustainability and easy upgrades.
High-performance algorithms, deployed on cost-effective hardware, balance affordability and clinical precision.
South African-led innovation positions the solution for global impact.
This project demonstrates how deep domain knowledge, coupled with cutting-edge engineering tools, can reshape critical healthcare systems—creating technology that is not only world-class, but also built for the realities of the world.
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