Thursday, January 24, 2008
Bionic Eye With Blind in Mind
Filed under: Ophthalmology
Biomedical engineers at University of Southern California have been working on a design, and filed for a patent, for a video camera to be implanted directly into the eye as a prosthesis to help with vision problems such as macular degeneration:
The eye's lens normally projects an image onto a curved surface called the retina at the back of the eye. This creates problems for light-sensitive chips since they have to be flat.One way around this is to use a camera outside the eye to record images and send them via a wire to the chip at the back of the eye.
But Michelle Hauer, an optical engineer at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, US, says a better idea is to implant the camera directly within the eye, but avoiding the retina.
She and colleagues have come up with a design that is small enough to be implanted within the lens of the eye, and takes into account the effect of the cornea on incoming light.
The device transmits images to a chip at the back of the eye, which passes the image signals on to the nerve cells.
With bionic eyes, overpowering prosthetic legs, dangerously strong mechanical arms, and machines that make old Japanese men strong, we predict people will soon be wanting replacements for their originals.
(hat tip: Engadget)
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