“There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by lending a helping hand to those in dark”
We are living a life with full of colors and
pictures we daily see, a life without sight is dark. And blind people
are alive with the dark lives. It’s not like just helping a blind person
to cross the road we have to do something more for them as a human
being. As we belong to the community of engineers - nothing is
impossible for us if we try. If scientists generate ideas then its
engineers who put life in those ideas. Today we are having all the
machines in our hand, it’s our turn to return what mankind gives us.
In the current world about 40 million people suffered from blindness and
about 140 million people are suffered from low vision and if we talk
about India we are having the world’s largest number of people suffering
from blindness. The objective of BIONIC EYE is the same as to restore visual signal to whom suffering from eye disease such as retinitis pigmentosa.
In this a video camera is integrated with a pair of glasses which will
capture and process images. The images are wirelessly sent to small
processor which converts it into electronic signal and these signal
further transmitted to a retinal implant or electrode which send visual
signal to brain for further processing. So by this even blind people
also have vision.
The Human Eye
When a light ray reflected from an object an
reaches to our eye then signals are sent to brain then brain decodes the
signal in order to optimize the appearance, location and movements of
the object we are seeing at. The whole process is performed due to light
only, without light there is no world which means we are not able to
see anything.
The main part of an eye is retina. The retina is
an inside wall of eye which works as film of a camera to capture the
light signals and transmit them to brain via optic nerves to create
vision.
The Bionic Eye
It’s an artificial eye which
provide visual sensations to the brain. It consist of electronic systems
having image sensors, microprocessors, receivers, radio transmitters
and retinal chips. Technology provided by this help the blind people to
get vision again.
It consist of a computer chip which is kept in the
back of effected person eye and linked with a mini video camera built
into glasses that they wear. Then an image captured by the camera are
focused to the chip which converts it into electronic signal that brain
can interpret. The images produced by Bionic eye were not be too much
perfect but they could be clear enough to recognize. The implant
bypasses the diseased cells in the retina and go through the remaining
possible cells.
Working of Bionic Eye
The device consists of 3,500 micro photodiodes which are set at the back part of the retina. The electrical signal which is sent to brain is obtained from these miniature solar cells array as they converts the normal light to electrical
The Bionic Eye works similar to human eye as it gets images from the camera
fitted with the glass that a blind person can wear, the camera is small
in size as it fits onto the frame of glass or in future we can able set
into the structure of the artificial eye. Then the image is further
send to a small electronic chipset (microprocessor). The work of microprocessor is to convert that image data into the electronic signal
and further transfer it to the receiver, it send signals through a very
tiny cable to an electrode panel implanted by the doctors on the back
wall of eye which is also called as retina. Electrode panel generate
pulses which travel through the optic nerve to the brain, the optic
nerve of a blind person is sometimes damaged then we use some devices
which are capable of bypassing the signal from the possible ways, then
only the signal is able to reach the brain. As the signal reaches the
brain, brain start the decoding the signal and we are able to identify
what the subject is, this process is too fast that we are able to see in
similar to human eye.
Available Bionic Eye System
The available bionic eye system developed by California based company named Second sight is Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System approved
FDA in United States. Retinal Prosthesis is a biomedical implant used
to partially restore the useful vision for those who have lost their
sight due to this disease. According to a survey in every 5,000 people
there is one suffered from that disease. It used to provide pulse signal
to the brain by using the retinal implant for the blinded person. As it
is having a mini video camera to get the data which is wirelessly
transferred to a video processing unit which converts the data into
electronic signal and then the signals transferred to electrodes which
generate impulse to interpret with the brain and a blind person is able
to see like an normal human, but the vision is not 100% perfect.
Future of Bionic Eyes
In the future we are able to increase higher
numbers of electrodes that are capable of producing sharper, colored and
more functional vision for people who are blind from retinitis
pigmentosa and other retinal diseases, including macular degeneration.
Scientists are are testing devices with even more
electrodes so that it can bypass the retina and move the signals to the
brain directly. The next generation of Argus II retinal stimulator is
going to design with 60 controllable electrodes which provide subjects
beamed with higher resolution images.
How It Looks Like to See Through a Bionic Eye
Bionic eye provides a vision differ from the
vision a human used to have. It does not restore full vision it’s not
fully perfect or clear. A trial taken by the manufacturing company,
about half of the blind person were able to read very large letters it’s
about 9 inches high viewed from 1 foot away or about 23 centimeters
high viewed from 0.3 meters away. A few blind person were able to read
smaller letters it’s about 1-2 inches high viewed from 1 foot away or
about 2.5-5 centimeters high viewed from 0.3 meters away and short
words. After the test, it is found that the majority of blind person
received a benefit from the Argus II System.
