Contact lens offers hope of tactile vision

Researchers from the Faculty of Engineering at the Bar Ilan University in Israel have developed a prototype contact lens that could bring ‘tactile vision’ to the visually impaired.

Developed by professor Zeev Zalevsky, the contact lens processes digital images from a camera which is either held in the hand or mounted on a pair of glasses. It is worn like a regular contact lens and translates the digital images into tactile sensations which can then be felt on the patient’s cornea, allowing them to create pictures of their physical surroundings.

Zalevsky likened the process to reading Braille, but with eyes rather than fingertips. He said patients taking part in preliminary clinical trials were able to transmit basic spatial shapes through tactile sense which were recognisable to patients after a few minutes.