High-speed eye tracking device and method
First Claim
1. An eye tracking device comprising a plurality of light emission means for transmitting near infrared collimated light in the direction of the human eye, said near infrared collimated light disposed for transmission through the pupil and reflection off the retina in such a way that the brightest reflected near infrared collimated light occurs from the fovea, a plurality of light detection means, corresponding in location to said light emission means such that for every light emission means there is at least one corresponding light detection means, for detection of said reflected near infrared collimated light, said light detection means being positioned in such a way as to be coincident with the optical axis of the eye, and computation means for computing the visual axis and point of regard from the fovea reflected light.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An eye tracking device that utilizes light detection devices for determining the visual axis and point of regard of a user. The light detection devices are arranged in such a way, such as embedded in a thin film, so as to be curved around the optical axis of the eye. In this way, the light detection devices are always coincident with source-emitted light reflected from the fovea. The curved arrangement of light detection devices are mounted onto a head or facial apparatus, which has a mild reflector on its outside surface to keep external light noise at a minimum. Conversion circuitry, such as a pyramid cascade circuit or a microprocessor circuit, determines the position of the fovea-reflected light and computes the visual axis and point of regard of the user at a very rapid rate.
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Citations
16 Claims
- 1. An eye tracking device comprising a plurality of light emission means for transmitting near infrared collimated light in the direction of the human eye, said near infrared collimated light disposed for transmission through the pupil and reflection off the retina in such a way that the brightest reflected near infrared collimated light occurs from the fovea, a plurality of light detection means, corresponding in location to said light emission means such that for every light emission means there is at least one corresponding light detection means, for detection of said reflected near infrared collimated light, said light detection means being positioned in such a way as to be coincident with the optical axis of the eye, and computation means for computing the visual axis and point of regard from the fovea reflected light.
- 12. The eye tracking device of claim wherein said computation means comprises a pyramid cascade circuit comprising a plurality of read only memory words which contain the hard coded address for each row and column of the light detection means, a plurality of analog to digital converters for converting the voltage output of each row and column of said light detection means to a numerical value, and a plurality of comparators between each pair of said rows and columns for comparing said numerical values and selecting the larger of the two, passing said larger numerical value and said address up to the next level of comparators, until the address with the largest numerical value is outputted.
Specification