A Holographic Waveguide Display Based Low Vision Eyewear

 描述（由申请人提供）：低视力康复是恢复功能性视力和维持永久性视力障碍患者高生活质量的唯一行之有效的方法。低视力辅助设备是操纵视觉信息的设备，例如，放大图像，以补偿受损的视力。患者对助视器的接受意愿、适应能力和坚持使用助视器的动机是影响低视力康复成功的关键因素。可穿戴放大镜（bioptic telescope，BT）是有可能在许多重要的日常生活任务中使中心视力丧失（CVL）患者受益的设备。然而，目前的光学和电子可穿戴放大器的处方率非常低，并且仅用于少数任务，因为只有少数临床医生掌握复杂的处方和装配程序，并且因为患者难以接受设备的外观并学习适应他们不自然的观看方式。全息波导显示（HWD）技术使用薄全息耦合器将信号从图像源通过一块玻璃基板引导到眼睛。基于HWD的可穿戴放大器可以克服传统可穿戴放大器的许多困难，因为其在眼睛前方的紧凑设计、重量轻、成本低以及适应CVL患者的各种需求的灵活性。该研究通过3个具体目标探索了将HWD技术应用于低视力辅助的可行性：1）开发可穿戴全息波导低视力眼镜（HW-LOVE）原型; 2）通过对22名CVL患者进行2阶段，2序列交叉研究，比较HW-LOVE原型和传统BT在改善视力受损方面的相对有效性。CVL受试者将用裸眼、传统BT和HW-LOVE原型完成办公室视觉任务（如视力和对比敏感度）和现实生活中的视觉任务（如人脸识别、面部表情识别和交通标志识别）; 3）评估低视力受试者在外观、体重、佩戴舒适度、视野、敏锐度方面对HW-LOVE或传统BT的偏好，亮度等使用用户偏好问卷。如果第一阶段的研究表明，HW-LOVE有助于帮助CVL患者，并且CVL患者更喜欢HW-LOVE而不是传统的BT，则第二阶段的研发将集中于改善HW-LOVE的可穿戴性和显示质量，为临床医生开发处方，装配和分配支持系统，并进行纵向临床试验以评估患者的接受度，适应性，HW-LOVE在CVL患者中的使用和偏好。原型的估计硬件费用在1 500美元左右。商业产品的目标成本应低于1，000美元。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Low vision rehabilitation is the only proven way to restore functional vision and maintain a high quality of life in patients with permanent vision impairment. Low vision aids are devices that manipulate visual information, for example, magnify images, to compensate for impaired vision. The patient's willingness to accept a low vision aid, ability to adapt to it and the motivation to use it persistently are the key factors fo successful low vision rehabilitation. Wearable magnifiers (bioptic telescopes, BT) are devices that have the potential to benefit patients with central vision loss (CVL) in many important daily living tasks. However, current optical and electronic wearable magnifiers suffer from very low prescription rates and are used only in a few tasks because only a few clinicians master the complicated prescribing and fitting procedures and because patients having difficulties accepting the appearance of the devices and learning to adapt to their unnatural way of seeing. Holographic Waveguide Display (HWD) technology uses thin holographic couplers to guide signals from an image source to the eye via a piece of glass substrate. A HWD-based wearable magnifier may overcome many of the difficulties of the conventional wearable magnifiers because of its compact design in front of the eye, light weight, low cost and flexibility in accommodating the wide variety of needs of CVL patients. The proposed research explores the feasibility of applying HWD technology to low vision aid through 3 specific aims: 1) to develop a wearable Holographic Waveguide LOw Vision Eyewear (HW-LOVE) prototype; 2) to compare the relative effectiveness of the HW-LOVE prototype and conventional BTs in improving impaired vision by conducting a 2-period, 2-sequence crossover study on 22 CVL patients. Office vision tasks such as visual acuity and contrast sensitivity and real-life visual tasks such as face identification, facial expression recognition and traffic sign recognition will be performe by the CVL subjects with the naked eye, conventional BTs and the HW-LOVE prototype; 3) to assess low vision subjects' preference to the HW-LOVE or conventional BTs in their appearance, weight, comfort of wearing, field of view, acuity, brightness and so on using a user preference questionnaire. If Phase I research demonstrates that the HW-LOVE is useful in aiding CVL patients and that CVL patients prefer the HW-LOVE over conventional BTs, Phase II R&D will be focused on improving wearability and display quality of the HW-LOVE, on developing prescription, fitting and dispensing support systems for clinicians and on longitudinal clinical trials to assess patient acceptance, adaptation, utilization and preference of the HW-LOVE in CVL patients. The estimated hardware cost of the prototype is in the range of $1,500. The target cost of a commercial product should be <$1,000.