Retinal prosthesis to aid the visually impaired

Abstract

In this retinal prosthesis project, a rehabilitative device is being designed to replace the functionality of defective photoreceptors in patients suffering from retinal pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration. An implantable intraocular unit receives power and signal via a telemetric inductive link with an extraocular unit. The extraocular unit consists of a video camera and video processing board, a telemetry protocol encoder chip, an RF amplifier and a primary coil, while the intraocular unit consists of a secondary coil, a rectifier and regulator, a retinal chip with a telemetry protocol decoder and stimulus signal generator, and an electrode array. This paper describes the design and testing of the overall system components.