Scientists from all over the world have been working to develop a treatment for blindness. However, various bionic technologies have been discovered but they have not been able to assist blind people on a massive scale.
The Monash University team claims to have developed a method that will allow blind people to see again. They claim that this is the world’s first bionic eye. The ‘Gennaris bionic vision system,’ a prosthetic eye, has been in development for nearly a decade. It operates by allowing messages to be delivered from the retina to the brain’s vision centre by bypassing damaged optic nerves.
The user would have to put on a specially constructed helmet with a camera and a wireless transmitter. The signals from the aforementioned receiver are received by a set of 9 mm tiles implanted in the brain.
“Our design creates a visual pattern from combinations of up to 172 spots of light (phosphenes) which provides information for the individual to navigate indoor and outdoor environments, and recognize the presence of people and objects around them,” Arthur Lowery, professor at Monash University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, said in a statement.
