According to news on May 16, recently, a research team from Nanjing University, Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital, and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics developed a contact lens with eye tracking function. The appearance is the same as that of ordinary contact lenses. It is based on frequency encoding strategy and spherical surface. Using conformal micro-nano processing and preparation technology, the contact lenses are wireless, passive, lightweight, non-sensory, soft and safe, and can achieve high-precision eye tracking and eye movement command recognition.
Source: Nanjing University official website
An article on the official website of Nanjing University introduces the contact lens as follows:
The eye-tracking contact lens consists of four radio frequency location tags, which are distributed around the contact lens and encapsulated in medical-grade silicone rubber material. It has a curvature that matches the human cornea, a hydrophilic surface modification and an extremely thin thickness, making it moist, oxygen-permeable, comfortable and comfortable. After the user wears the contact lens, through a simple implicit calibration process, the individual differences of the human eye and the randomness in the wearing process are calibrated, and high-precision eye tracking is achieved based on the time-series eye tracking algorithm. The eye movement angle accuracy is better than 0.5°, even smaller than the angle of view provided by the fovea, meeting the accuracy requirements of eye movement tracking. Contact lenses are robust and stable during operation, and the wireless radio frequency technical solution is immune to interference from strong light and projected images on eye tracking. The operating frequency of the device also avoids common electromagnetic interference, such as mobile phones, routers and other radio frequency signal sources. In addition, the biocompatible packaging of the contact lens ensures the safety of the device. It passed a 72-hour cytotoxicity test and a week-long long-term in vivo rabbit eye irritation test, with no significant difference from commercial contact lenses.
According to Nanjing University, based on the contact lens, the joint team demonstrated a variety of eye-computer interaction applications.For example, eye movement text input, painting, game control, web page interaction, camera control, autonomous vehicle control, etc.. With the contact lens’s accurate and stable wireless eye tracking capabilities, rich and diverse interaction modes, soft and comfortable structural characteristics, and biosafe physical and chemical properties, it is expected to be used in human-computer interaction, eye-brain medical diagnosis and treatment, eye-brain scientific research, and psychology. application in scientific research and other fields.
This work was published in "Nature Communications" under the title "Frequency-encoded eye tracking smart contact lens for human-machine interaction" [Nature Communications, 2024, 15:3588].
Source: IT Home
English 
Chinese