The pea-sized video camera is small enough to fit inside the eyeball. The camera is linked to an artificial retina that transmits moving images along the optic nerve to brain. It could be implanted within three to five years.
The man behind the breakthrough is Dr Mark Humayun, Professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering at the Doheny Eye Institute in Los Angeles, California.
He said: “The camera is very, very small, and very low power, so it can go inside your eye and couple your eye movement to where the camera is.
“With the kind of missing information the brain can fill in, this field is really blossoming.
“So in the next four to five years I hope, and we all hope, that we see technology that’s much more advanced.”
The institute has already pioneered artificial vision with the company Second Sight.
The existing Argus system has been used in clinical trials, giving rudimentary vision to blind patients with conditions like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.
The Argus device relies on a video camera which is built into a pair of glasses to capture images.
These are converted into electrical signals which are transmitted wirelessly to an implant behind the retina.
The electrodes in the implant unscramble the signal to create a crude black and white picture, which is relayed along the optic nerve to the brain.
Linda Moorfoot is one of the few patients to be fitted with the implant. She had been totally blind for more than a decade with the inherited condition retinitis pigmentosa.
But she can now see a rough image of the world made up of light and dark blocks.
She said: “When I go to the grandkids’ hockey game or soccer game I can see which direction the game is moving in. I can shoot baskets with my grandson, and I can see my granddaughter dancing across the stage. It’s wonderful.”
Linda’s implant has just 16 electrodes but the US surgeons last week helped to fit an even more advanced device to British patients.
The updated model has 60 electrodes to give a clearer image.
The identities of the patients have been concealed while doctors at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital monitor their progress.
Meanwhile in California, scientists are developing an implant with 1,000 electrodes, which should allow facial recognition
Future Vision by Erwin Van Lun on this article
Later we’ll be able to repair all accidents and flaws in nature. This’ll unburden health care and daily support immensely. Blind that can walk by themselves? You won’t need a guide-dog anymore.