More BrandsA group of Israeli researchers has developed a prototype bionic contact lens, using a technique called sensory substitution to help blind people “see,” ISRAEL21c has reported.
The people behind this project are Bar-Ilan University professors Zeev Zalevsky, Michael Belkin and Yevgeny Beiderman. Their lens uses electrical signals dispatched from a small transponder that is attached to a pair of glasses or downloaded to a smartphone. A camera similar to the ones found inside mobile phones snaps various objects and sends the encoded image to the cornea by way of the lens. The image is then translated into a tactile sensation which lends itself to visual interpretation.
In an interview for ISRAEL21c, Zalevsky said that the human cornea had 600 times more tactile sensors than the fingertips, which is what blind people use to read Braille. This abundance of tactile sensors in the eye makes it possible for a person to “feel” an image at a very high resolution. The professor described the sensation as similar to that of using one’s hands to feel the face of a person in order to get an idea of their appearance. The bionic lens achieves the same result by touching projected images onto the cornea, Zalevsky told the publication.
The Israeli product has yet to pass clinical trials but the developers have tested the prototype on healthy people. It took them a few minutes to learn how to associate the images with the sensations on their fingertips. After this short learning curve, they were able to actually “see” through the bionic lens, recognising objects such as houses, doors and cars.
