$1.3M NIH SBIR Phase 2 Award: Year 1

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Advanced Optronics an SBIR Phase 2 grant. The award, #2R44DC021397-02, is $1.3 million for the budget period July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. The project is titled “Reducing structural damage and adverse surgical events during cochlear implantation using an intraoperative sensing system.”

Our core mission is to give surgeons real-time information to detect and avoid trauma during electrode insertion, and Phase 2 funds that work.

To do that, the project builds the Sixth Sense Surgical guidance system. FlexDetect sensors are integrated with the cochlear implant electrode array, and machine-learning models turn raw strain into clinically relevant measures. Hardware then shows the surgeon the result in real time. The project has three aims:

1. Refine the sensor system and validate its performance.
2. Carry the machine-learning models from simulation to real insertions, so they detect the electrode’s state and clinical events.
3. Validate the integrated system in a powered cadaver study, measuring intracochlear trauma by histology.

Phase 2 builds on our 2023 Phase 1 award of $275,000, which produced a benchtop prototype and demonstrated feasibility. Thanks to NIDCD for funding this next step. The project period runs to June 30, 2027.

The award is listed on NIH RePORTER.