Eye tracking from your ear drum
A UK startup is looking to commercialise an unusual sensor technology called EarSwitch.
The company holds an international patent on the technology, which uses a camera and photodiodes in the ear canal to measure a number of biometrics and can even monitor where your eyes are looking.
The technology was described in a paper in 2018 by researchers at Duke University in the US titled: “The eardrums move when the eyes move: A multisensory effect on the mechanics of hearing”
Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and Lancaster University in the UK showed their version of the technology in 2021 on Voluntary Tensor Tympani Muscle Contraction.
The technology can also be used for other biometrics such as measuring the amount of oxygen in the blood as the ear drum does not have skin pigments that can make the results from fingers variable.
EarSwitch has been working with the University of Bath and is looking to license the technology to potential customers based around an evaluation module that combines a 1 x 1mm CMOS camera from Omnivision with two photodiodes to provide illumination in the ear canal.
- Omnivision opens Belgian R&D centre
- First square 2MP CMOS image sensors for endoscopes
- Brain-computer ear interface developed for smartphones
“Our current working prototype is a miniature camera held in a silicone ear-piece,” said Dr Nick Gompertz, CEO of EarSwitch. “The camera picks up movement of the eardrum when the person intentionally tenses the middle ear muscle. This movement is detected by the computer and controls an on-screen keyboard. The keyboard scans sequentially through rows of letters, then groups of letters, allowing single letters to be selected by a simple ‘ear-click’.”
The company is also looking to test out more features of eye tracking in an upcoming university project.
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
