You know what is the most complex part of the human body, yes it’s the human eye. Researchers have been working on reproducing the same. Now, they have made artificial eyesight possible called EC-I, which has the ability to see better than the real thing.
Bionic eyes has the potential to restore eyesight to people who have lost it and even to those who never had it.
Currently, the most advanced versions are from companies such as Bionic Vision Australia and Second Sight, which have already been implanted into patients.
These devices are made of a pair of glasses with a camera in the center. That data is processed by a small unit worn out of the body, then sent to the user’s retina for implantation.
From there, signals are transmitted to the visual centers of the brain.
And they work. Users have reported being able to see the world for the first time in years. Unfortunately, this artificial eyesight is not enough for them to rely on to navigate the world.
Some studies have shown that this type of bionic eye can produce strange images and are too slow to capture sharp movements.
But this new device can be improved. A team led by scientists from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has developed what they call Electrochemical Eye (EC-Eye).
Instead of using a camera-like two-dimensional image sensor, the EC-I is designed with a concave curve following an actual retina.
This surface is studded with an array of small light sensors designed to mimic photoreceptors on the human retina.
These sensors are connected by a wire made of liquid metal, which then acts like an optic nerve.
The team tested the EC-I and showed that it could capture images much earlier than expected.
It was set up to display large individual letters in front of a computer screen, and it was able to display them clearly enough to be read.
Although this is a huge improvement over existing bionic eye designs, EC-I vision has a long way ahead to achieve the natural human eyesight. But, the team says, this may not be the case forever.
The technique has the ability to outshine the real thing by using a dense array of sensors and attaching each sensor to a separate nanowire.
The team even goes so far as to say that using other materials in different parts of the EC-I can provide users with a higher sensitivity to infrared – essentially, night vision.
Of course, a lot of work remains to be done in the future, but the EC-I is promising.
The research was published in the journal Nature. The device can be seen testing its eyes in the video below.
Electrochemical eye (EC-eye) -Eye images sensory images
