EAGER: Smart Phone Platform for Personal High-Resolution 3D Optical Imaging

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

PI: Boppart, Stephen Instituation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Proposal: 1445111 EAGER: Smart Phone Platform for Personal High-Resolution 3D Optical Imaging The successful outcome of this research project will have a far-reaching and broad impact on many segments of our society. Most significantly, the technology and innovation in this project will enable novel mobile health applications and capabilities that will enable more sophisticated personalized health monitoring for the general public as well as for those in rural or developing regions of our world. This technology, for a number of very common diseases in the ear and skin, will serve as a means for early detection of disease. In addition, after treatment has been prescribed, it will serve for monitoring of the regression or progression of the disease. This project will design and develop a smart phone platform that enables personal high-resolution 3D optical imaging. In addition to the traditional CCD cameras currently found in every smart phone and used for photography, this platform will implement a low-cost, compact, and portable optical imaging system based on optical coherence tomography (OCT). This self-contained handheld device with a unique set of optical elements will utilize the smart phone light source and camera, as well as its on-board processing and wireless communication hardware. This group will develop a novel high-resolution 3D optical imaging platform designed for integration into the next-generation of personal smart phones. This platform which is based on low-coherence interferometry is regularly utilized in OCT, and therefore will have widespread applications not only along the medical and biological development paths established by OCT, but also a larger number of other applications because of the compact, portable, low-cost, and virtually ubiquitous nature of the technology.