The ASL iON Drive Control System by Adaptive Switch Laboratories Inc. has been named a 2025 Mobility Management Products Award winner in the Mobility: Alternative Driving Controls (For Power Wheelchairs) category by Mobility Management.
The Mobility Management Product Awards program honors outstanding product development in Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) and accessibility. Lisa Rotelli, Director at Adaptive Switch Laboratories Inc., sat down with Mobility Management to share more about the ASL iON Drive Control System solution and her thoughts on the future of the industry. To learn more about the Mobility Management Product Awards and view all of this year’s winners, visit https://mobilitymgmt.com/product-awards/.
MM: Tell us about the ASL iON Drive Control System, including a few top features and benefits.
Rotelli: The ASL iON Drive Control System represents a significant advancement in alternative drive controls that goes beyond enhanced mobility and navigation. It increases users’ abilities to engage with other people, interact with their environment, and independently meet their own needs. The iON offers an unprecedented array of capabilities that enables people with the most extensive mobility and voice limitations to experience life as fully as possible. These capabilities include Bluetooth pairing to as many as eight devices, more than three dozen pre-programmed phrases for users with speech limitations, multiple user-managed active drive controls, and auditory voice cues for navigation among other features.
MM: In designing this product, what were the top goals of the design team and engineers? What did they most seek to achieve?
Rotelli: The goal when designing the iON was to empower users with the most complex needs by providing accessible technology that enables them to easily gain attention when help is needed, clearly express their wants and needs, and confidently understand each function through voice cues. The iON also allows for seamless Bluetooth pairing with up to eight devices — including phones, tables, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems — ensuring effortless connectivity and communication.
MM: Who and/or what were the inspirations for your winning product’s functionality, features and design elements?
Rotelli: The inspiration behind this technology comes from individuals with mobility impairments, limited access points, and speech challenges — whether they are losing the ability to speak or have never had functional communication or mobility. The design reflects a deep understanding of how disabilities can evolve over time, supporting users through every stage of their journey, whether they are gaining new abilities and control or experiencing a gradual loss of function.
MM: Who benefits from your product? Can you offer a “typical” client profile, including diagnosis/presentation, indications/contraindications?
Rotelli: The iON is designed for individuals with neuromuscular diseases, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), advanced multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and individuals with head or high-level spinal cord injuries. The iON connects to all ASL digital drive controls.
MM: Does your winning product offer adjustability or customizability for the different needs of different clients?
Rotelli: A client’s driving experience with the iON can be fully customized to meet their needs across different environments. For instance, a user who utilizes latched sip-and-puff head array driving outdoors can easily switch to non-latched head array control indoors, allowing for greater precision and comfort in all driving situations.
With the iON, individuals can also operate their ASL drive control to move a computer mouse and perform left clicks using just three switches — greatly expanding their ability to access and navigate technology. A user approaching a closed door can even use the iON’s built-in voice and pre-programmed phrases to request assistance, such as asking someone to “Please open the door.”
Furthermore, individuals who previously depended on caregivers to connect feeding device cables or assist with meals can now independently manage those tasks through the iON’s Bluetooth connectivity, enabling greater autonomy and dignity in daily life.
MM: How does your winning product optimize independence, function, safety, confidence, success with everyday goals, etc., for its consumers?
Rotelli: Compared to other wheelchair drive controls, the iON offers an unprecedented array of technologies to increase the capabilities of people with the most profound mobility and speech limitations to engage as fully as possible in daily life. It gives someone the power to independently control their computers or mobile phones from their drive control, devices such as communication devices, tablets, door openers and other assistive technologies. With the built-in auditory selection, the user can make requests of people around them from an array of pre-programmed phrases.
The goal is to be able to follow along with someone’s changing needs, and to help people be able to express themselves instead of everyone guessing what is wrong or what they are needing. A few examples of the voice cues in the iON are “I’m in pain,” “I’m stuck,” or “I’m hungry.”
MM: What funding options are available for this product?
Rotelli: The iON is a drive control and is billed under the same codes as a head array, fiber optic array, sip & puff control. There are accessories, like a remote stop switch and remote attendant control, that can be billed separately.
MM: What makes a product or service a Mobility Management Product Award winner? What advice do you have for future entrants?
Rotelli: My advice to anyone designing products is to begin by deeply understanding the true need for what you are creating — who it is for, and how it will make a meaningful difference in their lives. We work with individuals who are medically fragile and face daily challenges just to accomplish a single task independently. Our responsibility as designers and innovators is to make that independence possible.
