NSF Award
9760942
*** 9760942 Hang This is a Small Business Innovation Research Phase I proposal. Currently, technology to help individuals with low vision consists primarily of optical or electronic magnifiers. Optical magnifiers, both microscopes and telescopes, can be hand-held, stand-mounted, or headmounted. For most such devices, magnification and focal distance are fixed. Electronic magnifiers include closed-circuit television systems, used chiefly for reading, and hardware and software to enlarge text on computer screens. Closed circuit TV's have the added capability of electronically boosting or reversing contrast. Existing displays typically use a liquid crystal display (LCD), a light emitting diodes (LED), or a miniature cathode ray tube (CRT) as an image source, which relay this image via an infinity-focus optical system to the eye. All of these display devices are bulky, heavy, and drain extensive battery power. The goal of this program is to demonstrate that a low-weight, head-mounted, low-vision display device (LDD) can be built so that the real-time, high contrast image, which is captured by a charge-coupled-device (CCD), is projected (scanned) to the healthy portion of the retina. Unlike conventional projectors, this one has no moving parts, bulky optics, or energy consuming light sources. The LDD will also be inexpensive to produce. We anticipate that this innovation will open up a new avenue in the field of head-mounted display, which has wide applications in pilot training, medicine, telemedicine, and entertainment. ***
