Electroftalm

The Electroftalm is an invention of the Polish ophthalmologist Kazimierz Noiszewski which was developed between 1897 and 1899, The arrangement served to give blind people a perception of their environment and thus to increase their quality of life. The device replicates the outer part of the natural visual system.

One of the students of prof. Starkiewicz, Dr. W. Kuprianowicz and techn. F. Petruczenko while putting electroftalm on a patient's head (1969)

Purpose

This system gave the blind the opportunity to perceive the surroundings. The blind man becomes independent of assistance dog, white cane or blind leader.

Development

The original Noiszewski system consisted of a photoresistor as a sensor and an acoustic transducer. The device was improved by Witold Starkiewicz using a matrix of sensor cells and vibrating actuators in the years 1960 and 1970.

Device

The Electroftalm consists of:

• Camera
  The camera maps the field of view onto a matrix of 120 (10 rows of 9–12 elements) of CdS – photocell n ,
• Control unit
  The control unit converts the electrical values ​​of the photocells into control signals for the actuator.
• Actuator system
  The actuator system consists of a Matrix of 120 electromagnetic vibrators attached to a convenient location on the user's body. For this purpose, the inventor carried out research. He found his forehead as the right place for this.

Problems

Device

• The CdS photo (resistance) cells are large, the reaction time depends on the light
• The power consumption of the device is high and the possible storage volume is low.
• The 120-element matrix allows only a small resolution of image.

Users

• It is necessary for the user to learn to transform the vibration signal into a visual image.
• The device is heavy.

Gallery

• 

  One of the first models of the "replacement eye" for the blind, developed in Szczecin in the late 1950s.

• 

  Example of rasterization with 225 matrix elements

• 

  Witold Starkiewicz

Current development

The development of semiconductor device fabrication (Charge-coupled device or thermoelectric cooling), surgical techniques (Visual prosthesis), medical research and methods such as implant or direct stimulation offer new approaches.

A completely analogous technique was distributed between 1970 and the late 1990s under the name Optacon for recognizing characters. Camera and encoder were so small here that they could easily be guided over the documents and the vibrating surface could be felt with one finger.

See also

• Machine Vision
• Blindness

Literature

• Michał Pec; Paweł Strumiłło; Paweł Pełczynski; Michał Bujacz (2006), "Stowarzyszenie Elektryków Polskich", in SEP, O słyszeniu obrazów – systemy wspomagania osób niewidomych w percepcji otoczenia, 35 (6), Łódź: Techniczno-Informacyjny Zarządu Łódzkiego, pp. 6–11, ISSN 1428-8966

References

Others articles of the Topic Technology : Amazon Music

This article "Electroftalm" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Electroftalm. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---