Active non-contact tonometer for glaucoma detection

Glaucoma is an increasingly common cause of visual impairment, and in some cases causes blindness. The approach to develop a low cost and non-contact tonometer for the detection of glaucoma, to replace the Goldmann tonometer used worldwide, is presented in this paper. The new tonometer exploits the vibration property of the cornea - the resonance frequency of the cornea rises with increasing intra-ocular pressure (IOP). An audio frequency signal is used to vibrate the cornea of the eye, the vibration of the cornea is measured using a fibre optic lever probe, and then the IOP can be calculated from the detected resonance frequency of the cornea. The initial PC-version experiment system of the new tonometer has been demonstrated and preliminary testing has been performed, showing a suitable sensitivity in detecting the resonance frequency against the IOP using both the simulated-eye model and the pig's eye. The initial system has been improved to be suitable for greater than 15mm detecting distance, and the measurement of vibrations of human cornea in-vivo has been carried out. Work is now focusing on increasing the sensitivity of the fibre probe, and reducing the measuring time to less than I second.