Electronics Being Embedded Into Contact Lenses

Members of the bioengineering team have been able to successfully display a single, remotely operated pixel onto the contact lens that the rabbit was wearing. The lens was powered by an external battery that transmitted the pixilated image through radio frequencies to the antenna that circles the edge of the contact lens. The antenna doesn't obstruct the view of the wearer of the contact. Researchers also embedded an integrated circuit that harvests the energy transmitted and that, in turn, powers the LED. Currently, the integrated circuit doesn't serve much purpose other than to be a storage receptacle for a CMOS processor.

The single pixel contact lens display, and the miniscule antenna has limited power range; this could be overcome through the use of a battery pack hooked over a wearer's ear (a human). Another drawback is because of the single pixel imagery the amount of information that can be transmitted is limited – as noted on the ExtremeTech article, though the message could be geared toward military usage with the transmitted message being, "missile lock" or a single notification such as, "new email."

Major pluses to the testing are that the rabbit was alive during the test and it was found to have no damage to its eye during or after the testing. Currently, the bioengineering team is working on a plan to embed multiple pixels onto the contact lens through the use of an array of micro-Fresnel lenses. The purpose of the contact lens is to eventually shrink the pixilated images that could allow for a computer display into a contact lens.