World's First Bionic Eye Ready for Trials

By implanting a microchip in the back of a person's head and fitting them with a special pair of glasses affixed to a small camera, researchers hope to restore the sight, at least partially, to the visually impaired.  

The team of Australian industrial designers is calling their invention the world's first bionic eye, and if successful, it has the potential to help the majority of people classified as clinically blind.

Researchers at Melbourne's Monash University report the bionic eye will be able to benefit those with macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, which accounts for 85 percent of all people considered clinically blind in Australia.

"It will help people who are completely blind and it it'll hopefully enable them to navigate," said Mark Armstrong, the head of Monash University's industrial design team, who spoke with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

While the device, at least in its early stages, will not be able to allow the blind to see in full detail, it will at least provide a rough image of the world.

"What we believe the recipient will see is sort of a low resolution dot image, sort of like a dot-matrix printer image," Armstrong said.

The bionic eye could enable the user to see the outlines of surroundings, offering clues to the locations of objects like the edge of tables or steps and gutters.

"It will of course enable people that are blind to be reconnected with their world, in a way."

The latest prototype of the bionic eye works by using an iPhone-like camera mounted on a pair of glasses. The camera records what's in front of it, while an eye-movement sensor directs the camera as the wearer turns his or her head. Digital processors built into the glasses interpret and render the images captured by the camera, and then wirelessly transmit the signal to a microchip implanted in back of the wearer's brain, which interprets the digital signal as sight.

"You don't need eyeballs for this," Arthur Lowery, the project's director, told Guardian Australia. "If you have optic nerve damage or glaucoma this can work as it bypasses the optical system. It gives hope to people who have had serious damage to their eyes."

While the technology is promising, perhaps even life-changing for people with serious vision problems, it would not likely be useful for anyone with partial vision.

"If you have some residual vision, it's probably of less use to you," Lowery said. "You wouldn't lose the vision you had but this is only presenting a few hundred pixels and most people with residual vision have more than that. We are aiming at people who are completely blind and have brains which are hardwired to understand what objects are, rather people who have never seen anything at all."

How the bionic eye user looks is important, too. Armstrong said users should feel confident and good about themselves while wearing the bionic eye.

"It needs to look sophisticated and appropriate, probably less like a prosthetic and more like a cool Bluetooth device."

Though the device has yet to be tested on a human, the first clinical trial of the bionic eye is expected to begin next year.