The Novosibirsk State University Artificial Intelligence Research Center (NSU AIRC) has launched the “Oculist Igor” project. It is being implemented with the Novosibirsk branch of the National Medical Research Center “Fedorov Eye Microsurgery” of the Russian Ministry of Health. The project provides an interactive computer program for remote examination of schoolchildren’s vision.
Alexey Okunev, Director of the NSU Higher College of Informatics, explained,
The screening method created at Fedorov Eye Microsurgery has been successfully used for several years to test the vision of schoolchildren in the Novosibirsk region online. However, to ensure the program adheres to a high-quality of operations requires constant monitoring by educational institutions. We were asked to make the system more autonomous. Our solution was to use artificial intelligence to check critical parameters when testing and to process the large amounts of data obtained.
As a result, experts at the NSU AIRC Igor Kozulin, Sergei Paul, and Roman Kharchenko, together with specialists fr om Fedorov Eye Microsurgery, created the software and hardware complex “Oculist Igor”. This will significantly optimize remote student screening.
The developers said the main objective of the first stage was to teach the neural network to correctly determine the distance between the screen and the subject’s eye. This caused some difficulties using the interactive program and led to a number of unreliable studies that had to be discarded. When this problem was solved, the potential of the “Oculist Igor” complex were much greater.
Okunev continued,
We can teach a neural network not only to determine at what distance a person is sitting, but also wh ere his eyes are looking, and this, according to our colleagues at Fedorov Eye Microsurgery, will help develop software to recognize the patient’s face, determine the angle of strabismus, monitor the dynamics of treatment and, possibly, detect other visual impairments at the earliest stages. This significantly expands the scope of “Oculist Igor’s” application.
Currently, the complex is being used to test the vision of students at the NSU Higher College of Informatics as a test in real conditions. This corresponds to the Center’s strategy to make the new NSU campus, which is being built as part of the national project “Science and Universities,” the main demonstration site for new technologies.
Alexander Lyulko , Acting Director of NSU AIRC, emphasized,
All the results obtained during the implementation of the Center’s projects will be tested here including “smart” systems for monitoring air, noise and vibration, monitoring infrastructure facilities, an information platform for managing the educational process, a security system for the urban environment, and other solutions that use artificial intelligence in their operations.
It was previously reported that several hardware and software systems are in the planning stages for being transferred to implementation as a pilot project for vision screening examinations in schools in the Zaporozhye region where there is a shortage of ophthalmologists.
