Research Projects

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world and it is becoming more prevalent, in particular in the developing nations. Currently, glaucoma analysis is done through manual assessment of the optic disc by expert ophthalmologists, which takes numerous clinical hours of an already overburdened eye healthcare system. This proposal would bring forth further research in this direction and develop a smart handheld phone/tablet based glaucoma screening device. The aim is to equip a handheld device with suitable hardware and enable it to act as a smart glaucoma prescreening tool. The hardware would help in image acquisition and the interactive software running on the handheld device would perform image analysis. On the image processing front, we would like to explore the suitability of features other than cup-to-disc ratio to perform reliable glaucoma prescreening. The deliverable of this project would be a handheld device capable of glaucoma prescreening operating in the non-mydriatic mode. This device would save precious clinical hours and also empower semi-skilled medical personnel to perform reliable diagnosis. We envisage that the device will be low-cost, portable, easy to use, and capable of penetrating through to the marginalized and rural areas of the Indian society.