Wearable hybrid electronic systems can serve as unique biomonitoring tools to advance healthcare, diagnostics, and therapeutics. SKINTRONICS is a revolutionary bioelectronics system which provides a flexible, wireless, and skin-like platform for maximum comfort and conformability. Unlike the conventional hydrogel and cup gel electrodes which leave stick residue or cause pain and discomfort with long-term use, these ergonomic electrodes are able to contour to the curvilinear surface of facial features. This makes them an ideal method for tracking eye movements through electrooculograms. VCU inventors have utilized the SKINTRONICS system to develop an innovative methodology of gaze tracking, which can provide a real-time eye focus classification system.

The technology

The skin-like electrodes are positioned onto a person’s face in a novel manner so that they are more sensitive and provide a higher resolution eye movement. These electrodes are connected directly to a wireless Bluetooth data acquisition unit, which is able to transfer the eye movement data wirelessly to a computer or smartphone for preprocessing, feature selection, and finally classification. The end result is a notification by the system indicating the position of eye focus by the user. This device allows for mobile long-term recordings and can be used for activity recognition or even for helping patients with presbyopia in need of adaptive, corrective lenses.

Figure 1. (A) Eye vergence testing apparatus with skin-electrodes affixed to the face. Laser apparatus displays dots on a wall 400 cm away from the test subject. Dots represent near, intermediate, and far points (blue, red, and white dots respectively). An 1/8-inch-thick plexiglass is used for eye focusing movements. (B) Geometry of the square electrode with an area of 1 cm^2. (C) Dark field image of skin electrode.