Artificial eye system

An artificial eye system in which stimulus signal producing means converts an image signal, which represents an image of an outside world received by an image receiving element, into an electric stimulus signal, and the electric stimulus signal is transmitted from an electrode attached to a retina, the system including:

• an extracorporeal unit which is mounted outside a user's body;
• and
• an intracorporeal unit which is mounted inside the user's body,
• wherein the extracorporeal unit includes a visor and a power supply unit which supplies electricity to the visor,
• the visor includes a power transmitter which transmits power by electromagnetic induction, the image receiving element, and an imaging signal transmitter which transmits the image signal from the image receiving element as an imaging signal, and
• the intracorporeal unit includes:
• a power receiver which receives the power from the power transmitter by electromagnetic induction;
• a single imaging signal receiver which receives the imaging signal from the imaging signal transmitter;
• a signal processing circuit which processes the imaging signal received by the imaging signal receiver;
• an electrode unit which is placed away from the signal processing circuit and electrically connected to the signal processing circuit through a cable, and has a plurality of electrodes that transmits the electric stimulus signal to the retina and a demultiplexer that transmits the electric stimulus signal processed by the signal processing circuit to each electrode;
• and a power storage element which supplies the power to the electrodes and the signal processing circuit.

An artificial eye system in which stimulus signal producing means converts an image signal, which represents an image of an outside world received by an image receiving element, into an electric stimulus signal, and the electric stimulus signal is transmitted from an electrode attached to a retina, the system including:

• an extracorporeal unit which is mounted outside a user's body;
• and
• an intracorporeal unit which is mounted inside the user's body,
• wherein the extracorporeal unit includes a visor and a power supply unit which supplies electricity to the visor,
• the visor includes a power transmitter which transmits power by electromagnetic induction, the image receiving element, an imaging signal transmitter which transmits the image signal from the image receiving element as an imaging signal, and an eye-gaze point recognizing unit which recognizes an eye-gaze point,
• the intracorporeal unit includes:
• a power receiver which receives the power from the power transmitter by electromagnetic induction;
• a single imaging signal receiver which receives the imaging signal from the imaging signal transmitter;
• a signal processing circuit which processes the imaging signal received by the imaging signal receiver to produce the electric stimulus signal for stimulating the retina;
• and an electrode unit which is placed away from the signal processing circuit and electrically connected to the signal processing circuit through a cable, and has a plurality of electrodes that transmits the electric stimulus signal to the retina and a demultiplexer that transmits the electric stimulus signal processed by the signal processing circuit to each electrode, and
• the electric stimulus signal representing information acquired in a direction of the eye-gaze point recognized by the eye-gaze point recognizing unit being transmitted from the electrodes to the retina.