IMAGE CAPTURE COMPONENT ON ACTIVE CONTACT LENS

• US 20140098226A1
• Filed: 10/08/2012
• Published: 04/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Verily Life Sciences LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Pletcher, Nathan, Amirparviz, Babak, Hatalsky, Olivia
• Application Number:
  US13/647,348
• Publication Number:
  US 20140098226A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/143
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/0093 with means for monitoring data relating to the user, e.g. head-tracking, eye-tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G02C 7/04 Contact lenses for the eyes disinfection or sterilisation of contact lenses A61L12/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/19 Sensors therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast

Abstract

This disclosure relates to systems and/or methods for capturing image data representing a scene in a gaze of a viewer via a thin image capture component integrated on or within a contact lens, processing the image data, and employing the processed image data to perform functions locally on the contact lens or remotely on one or more remote devices.

Claims

1. A device, comprising:

a contact lens comprising;

a substrate;

at least one image capture component disposed on or within the substrate of the contact lens configured to generate raw image data corresponding to a gaze of a wearer of the contact lens; and

;

a processing component disposed on or within the substrate and connected to the at least one image capture component, the processing component is configured to receive the raw image data from the at least one image capture component.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the processing component further comprises an analysis component configured to generate processed image data from the raw image data.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the analysis component is further configured to generate a warning based upon at least one object detected in the processed image data.

4. The device of claim 2, wherein the processed image data includes metadata related to one or more detected object in the raw image data.

5. The device of claim 2, wherein the processed image data includes metadata related to light detected in the raw image data.

6. The device of claim 2, wherein the processed image data includes metadata related to one or more colors or patterns of colors detected in the raw image data.

7. The device of claim 2, wherein the processed image data includes one or more images meeting a predefined size, resolution, fields, color palette, luminance, contrast, chrominance, brightness, frame rate, quantization, interlaced, progressive, aspect ratio, pixel density, bit rate, compression, dimension, angle, or view.

8. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one image capture component includes a Fresnel lens for focusing.

9. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one image capture component includes a thin variable lens for focusing.

10. The device of claim 9, wherein the thin variable lens comprises at least one liquid layer configured to be electronically adjusted amongst a plurality of refractive index values.

11. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one image capture component includes a diffractive lens for focusing.

12. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one image capture component includes a refractive lens for focusing.

13. The device of claim 1, wherein the at least one image capture component includes a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor image sensor configured for employment in generating the raw image data.

14. The device of claim 1, further comprising an image control component configured to instruct, based upon image capture criteria, the at least one image capture component to generate the raw image data.

15. The device of claim 1, further comprising:

a power component disposed on the substrate configured to capture energy wirelessly and convert the captured energy to usable electric power; and

wherein at least one of the image capture component or processing component is configured to employ the usable electric power.

16. The device of claim 1, wherein the processing component further comprises an interface component configured to communicate with a remote device.

17. The device of claim 16, wherein the interface component transmits at least one of the raw image data or image information derived from the raw image data to the remote device.

18. The device of claim 16, wherein the interface component receives image capture criteria from the remote device, the image capture criteria includes at least one parameter related to instructing the image capture component to generate raw image data.

19. The device of claim 1, further comprising:

a display disposed on or within the substrate;

wherein the processing component is further configured to present on the display a peripheral view derived from the raw image data.

20. A method, comprising:

generating, by contact lens, raw image data corresponding to a gaze of a wearer of the contact lens; and

;

storing the raw image data.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising analyzing, by the contact lens, the raw image data to generate processed image data.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising generating, by the contact lens, a warning based upon at least one object detected in the processed image data.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the generating further comprises employing a thin variable lens having at least one liquid layer configured to be electronically adjusted amongst a plurality of refractive index values.

24. The method of claim 20, further comprising receiving, by the contact lens, image capture criteria from the host device, wherein the image capture criteria includes at least one parameter related to instructing the contact lens to generate raw image data.

25. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

generating, by the contact lens, a peripheral view based upon the raw image data; and

presenting, by the contact lens, the peripheral view on a display embedded on or within the contact lens.

26. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution, cause a contact lens including a processor to perform operations comprising:

generating raw image data corresponding to a gaze of a wearer of the contact lens; and

storing the raw image data.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26, further comprising analyzing the raw image data to generate processed image data.

28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 27, further comprising generating a warning based upon at least one object detected in the processed image data.

29. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26, wherein the generating further comprises employing a thin variable lens having at least one liquid layer configured to be electronically adjusted amongst a plurality of refractive index.

30. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26, further comprising receiving image capture criteria from the host device, wherein the image capture criteria includes at least one parameter related to instructing the contact lens to generate raw image data.

31. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 26, further comprising:

generating a peripheral view based upon the raw image data; and

presenting the peripheral view on a display embedded on or within the contact lens.