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Solar-Powered Eye Implant Could Restore Vision

by JP Mangalindan on January 3, 2009 at 08:22 AM

We've discussed eye implants that could eventually restore partial vision to people suffering from hereditary diseases like retinitis pigmentation, but for many others, a practical, medical solution for their near-to-total blindness remains painfully elusive.

Stanford University researchers may be well on their way to solving that problem. One of the biggest obstacles that they've had to address is getting power and images to their proprietary eye implant, which is usually placed in the back of the eye. A research group from University of Southern California has tried "beaming" power and data into the implant, while an MIT-Harvard team has toyed with the idea of using external light to power the implant. Stanford took the latter approach one step further, though, using light entering the eye to transfer both elements.


The Stanford implant, which is a mere 3 mm wide and 0.03 mm thick, is placed behind the retina at the back of the eye. An external video camera captures outside images, transmits the information to a pocket PC for processing, then sends the feed to a near-infrared LCD display built into video goggles. The goggles then emit infrared light pulses through the eye to the implant itself, providing the electricity and images necessary for the implant's proper function.

Because the Stanford implant system is still in the early stages of development, the vision restored to patients with the implant would only be 20/200 -- still qualifying them as legally blind. In other words, the person would need to be within 20 feet of an object to see it with the same clarity that a person with 20/20 vision would have from roughly 200 feet away. Once the implant is optimized, though, researchers expect the implant system to achieve 20/100 vision, enough for face recognition and reading large fonts. [From: ieee spectrum, via: inhabitat]

Tags: eye, Harvard, health, lcd, MIT, rsearch, science, sight, solar, stanford, top, vision

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