Eye Mounted Displays

• US 20090189830A1
• Filed: 01/23/2009
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Tectus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Tectus Corporation
• Inventors: Deering, Michael F., Huang, Alan
• Application Number:
  US12/359,211
• Publication Number:
  US 20090189830A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/1.300
• CPC Class Codes: G02C 7/04 Contact lenses for the eyes disinfection or sterilisation of contact lenses A61L12/00
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 3/02 by tracing or scanning a light beam on a screen
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/344 with head-mounted left-right displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/383 for tracking with gaze detection, i.e. detecting the lines of sight of the viewer's eyes

Abstract

A display device is mounted on and/or inside the eye. The eye mounted display contains multiple sub-displays, each of which projects light to different retinal positions within a portion of the retina corresponding to the sub-display. The projected light propagates through the pupil but does not fill the entire pupil. In this way, multiple sub-displays can project their light onto the relevant portion of the retina. Moving from the pupil to the cornea, the projection of the pupil onto the cornea will be referred to as the corneal aperture. The projected light propagates through less than the full corneal aperture. The sub-displays use spatial multiplexing at the corneal surface.

Claims

1. An eye mounted display for projecting light onto a user'"'"'s retina to form a visual sensation of an image, the eye mounted display comprising a plurality of sub-displays attached to the user'"'"'s eye, each sub-display projecting light to different retinal positions within a portion of the retina corresponding to the sub-display, each such projection of light propagating through a partial corneal aperture for that retinal position.

2. The eye mounted display of claim 1 further comprising:

a sclera contact lens mountable on the eye;

a display capsule having an anterior shell and a posterior shell and an interior, the display capsule mounted in the sclera contact lens so that the anterior shell of the display capsule is flush to an anterior surface of the sclera contact lens, the plurality of sub-displays comprising a plurality of femto projectorfemto projectors located in the interior of the display capsule, the femto projectorfemto projectors projecting light through partial corneal apertures that are substantially non-overlapping.

3. The eye mounted display of claim 1 wherein sub-displays that project light to portions of the retina closer to the fovea project light through partial corneal apertures that are larger than the partial corneal apertures through which sub-displays project light to portions of the retina farther away from the fovea.

4. An eye mounted display system for use by a user, comprising:

an eye mounted display that projects light onto the user'"'"'s retina to form a visual sensation of an image, the eye mounted display comprising a plurality of sub-displays attached to the user'"'"'s eye, each sub-display projecting light to different retinal positions within a portion of the retina corresponding to the sub-display, each such projection of light propagating through a partial corneal aperture for that retinal position;

an eye tracker that tracks an orientation of the eye;

a scaler coupled to the eye mounted display and to the eye tracker, the scaler receiving video input and converting the video input, based in part on the orientation of the eye received from the eye tracker, to a format suitable for projection by the eye mounted display.

5. The eye mounted display system of claim 4 further comprising:

a headpiece worn by the user, on which is mounted a first portion of a head tracker, a first portion of the eye tracker, and a data link component communicatively coupling the scaler to the eye mounted display, the data link component receiving the converted video input from the scaler and wirelessly transmitting the converted video input to the eye mounted display;

a second portion of the head tracker positioned in a frame of reference, the first and second portions of the head tracker cooperating to track the user'"'"'s head, the scaler converting the video input based in part on tracking of the user'"'"'s head; and

the eye mounted display containing a second portion of the eye tracker, the first and second portions of the eye tracker cooperating to track the orientation of the eye.