# NRI: Toward Safe and Reliable Robotic Eye Examinations

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2023 · $396,668

## Abstract

This project proposes to enable a complete system for robotic optometric I ophthalmic examination of 
freestanding patients, including automated cornea , lens, and retinal imaging as well as eyeglass 
prescription measurement. Robot-aided medical exams have the potential to improve access to 
preventative medical care, improve health outcomes, reduce costs of care, and reduce disease 
transmission risk, but they pose safety concerns due to the extremely close proximity of humans and 
machinery. Moreover, patient interactions are extremely varied , so automating data collection in the 
"long tail" of anomalous situations requires robust and adaptive perception and decision-making. 
To address these safety and reliability concerns , this three-year project will integrate basic research in 
real-time human motion sensing and robot motion planning with applied research in ophthamology and 
biomedical imaging. This research will be conducted along three aims. Aim 1 will build the robot-mounted sensing instrument by augmenting the proposers' existing work in robotically-aligned optical 
coherence tomography imaging with additional modalities. Aim 2 will address safety by leveraging 
recent technical advances in sensors, real-time human tracking , human motion prediction , and robot 
motion planning to implement active safety systems that eliminate robot-initiated collisions and minimize 
human-initiated ones. Aim 3 will address evaluation and refinement of safety and reliability using large-scale studies on head / eye phantoms and smaller-scale studies on human subjects.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10671768
- **Project number:** 1R01EY035106-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Kris Hauser
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $396,668
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-05-01 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10671768

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10671768, NRI: Toward Safe and Reliable Robotic Eye Examinations (1R01EY035106-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10671768. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*