MedTech: Can Smart Opto-Robotics Transform Contact Lens Quality Control?

While most of the contact lens manufacturing process has been successfully automated, quality control remains a major bottleneck. Despite being low-cost, high-volume products, contact lenses are complex medical devices requiring stringent measurements before they can be released for sale.

These include optical power, thickness, edge diameter, and surface defects — tasks still performed manually by skilled technicians under tightly controlled conditions.

As contact lenses become more advanced — potentially incorporating multifocal designs or drug-eluting coatings — the demands on quality control will only intensify. An integrated opto-robotic system could revolutionise this stage of production. Such a system would autonomously pick, inspect, and measure lenses under optimal humidity and temperature conditions, reducing human error, speeding up throughput, and shrinking factory footprints.

With advances in machine vision, AI, and delicate robotics, challenges like lens inversion, sticking, or curling could be overcome. The result? Faster batch release, cost savings, and scalable QC for the contact lenses of tomorrow.

Read the full article on ophthalmic quality control automation to explore how ophthalmic robotics could handle delicate lenses, integrate multiple measurements, and prepare for a future where contact lens complexity — and production scale — continue to rise.

TTP’s Ophthalmology and Optometry Device Development team has a long history of contact lens and automation development. This includes designing and installing contact lens manufacturing lines and high speed digital printing of contact lens pigments and patterns, as well as intelligent automation of products that include high speed vision systems in high capacity medical diagnostics, high speed cell sorting, precision laser machining and marking, and AI-enabled image recognition of complex and variable objects. Please contact us if you would like to discuss anything in this blog, or in technology for ophthalmology more generally.

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