Russian Version

A Breakthrough in Artificial Vision!

New concept of artificial vision – Tactile Vision! Newly patented means of coding and transmitting the signal – Artificial Vision Device!

Tactile substitution for human vision – concept of the project

We are very excited to declare that as of today in Russia there exists a working prototype of tactile substitution for human vision (an Artificial Vision Device)!

Experiments to date (including the impressive “tea party for the blind”) enable us to state that we have found a way to compensate for the informational deficit connected with blindness.

The application of the artificial vision device – The Tactile Substitution for Vision - TSV, gives the blind the ability to distinguish 3 to 5 objects simultaneously (within a camera’s field of vision), to navigate and move in a closed space, to read scanning the text lines and to work with the graphical interface of various computer programs.

The remaining research challenges include the following: orientation in open space, particularly the recognition of fast moving objects (cars, etc.); and possible side effects that may be caused by tactile electro-stimulating transmitters.

The further development of the artificial vision device and the corresponding training techniques for users, will demand a great deal of additional work and research. But what is already developed is both promising and impressive. We encourage you to look further into the information provided on this site. If what you see interests you (and we are sure it will), please feel free to contact us for further clarification or to answer any questions.

It took us several years of hard work to get where we are today, but we were sustained by a strong belief in the success of this enterprise even before we got to the stage of conducting the experiments.

Why?

The ground for our success was not connected with any sudden inspiration or lucky technical decision, but rather with our understanding of a certain ideology. We do not know the name for this ideology but it is connected with the well-known concept of ‘political correctness,’ and also includes the development of the “Para Olympic games”, building sidewalks with ramps, and using the term “person with special needs” instead of “handicapped.”

Working from the realization that a disabled individual need not be an outcast, but rather needs some assistance for normal functioning, we didn’t try to create an “artificial eye”; rather, we tried to find a way of compensating for the informational deficit resulting from the failure of any sensorial organs (loss of vision is only one possible scenario).

Information itself isn’t strictly connected with one sensor channel. Based on this approach, the idea of using another (tactile) channel for transmitting information instead of the disabled one became apparent to us – as apparent as the use of arms instead of legs to move around in a wheel chair.

Believing that vision is a dynamic process people learn as infants (meaning that one can learn it), and knowing the amazing flexibility of the central nervous system, we stopped thinking about exactly how the signal finds its way and limited our goals to simply finding a “comfortable” way for the information transmission – and this way turned out to be successful!

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