Pulse Medical Instruments

Ross J Beesmer

Tom N Cornsweet

Michael Rothberg

George Homsy

An improved eye tracking system capable of accurately measuring fast eye movements, is controlled by a microprocessor and software to rapidly track a subject's eye movements. The hardware for the electro-optical tracking system includes a quadrant detector which detects the relative direction of movement of the subject's eye. The output of the quadrant detector is processed by the microprocessor under the control of three software subsystems. The first software subsystem is the servo tracking software which controls positioning motors that rapidly move a mirror mechanism which reflects light that forms an image of the subject's eye on the quadrant detector. The second software subsystem is the pupil recognition software which recognizes that an image of a pupil is present. The third software subsystem is the blink detection software which recognizes the presence of a blink and disables the servo tracking subsystem. These three software subsystems work together to insure accurate tracking of a subject's eye movements.

Eye tracking method and apparatus

A pupil function analyzer has three major subsystem; an electro-optical system, an electronic interface system and a computer/software system. The electro-optical system can, in turn, be described in terms of three subsystems; one that delivers controlled lights to the patient's eyes, another that forms images of the two pupils on a video camera, and a third that moves the optics to maintain alignment with the patient's eyes. The electronic interface system converts signals from the video camera into digital signals to be read by the computer and also responds to the computer to move motors for the maintenance of optical alignment and also operates the light stimuli. The computer/software saves and analyzes the signals sent by the electronic interface, controls the alignment motors, and provides an operator interface, so that the operator can select tests and examine the results.

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Irvine, CA, United States of America

Ross J Beesmer