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Inventor and entrepreneur Chris Mullin has partnered with UB to produce high-tech sunglasses that combine sensors and miniaturized electronics to block bright glare.
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The days of being blinded by glare from the sun, despite the $300 sunglasses straddling your face, may soon be over.
Chris
Mullin, PhD, a formerly local inventor and entrepreneur, has teamed up
with the University at Buffalo to develop sunglasses that detect bright
spots of light and darken specific parts of the lens to protect
sunglasses wearers from blinding glare.
Although
the sunglasses are not yet ready for the consumer market, they are
garnering significant attention: these "smart" shades were named in June
one of Popular Science's top 10 inventions of 2011.
And
the U.S. Air Force is funding new research focused on creating eyewear
for fighter pilots and soldiers. The technology may also have potential
applications in the automotive, recreational, and health care sectors.
"Our
products let users see more in glare situations than ever before,
because they reduce direct glare 10 to 100 times more than any other
sunglasses," says Mullin, adding, "when there is no glare, it's just a
pair of sunglasses."
Mullin is the founder and CEO of Dynamic Eye,
a company he created in 2003, and has since worked with UB
electrical engineering professor Albert Titus, PhD, on producing
state-of-the-art sunglasses that combine sensors and miniaturized
electronics to identify and block bright glare.
Dynamic Eye relocated to Pittsburgh, Pa., in 2008.
Together,
Mullin and Titus improved the speed at which the sensor was able to
detect glare, at one point taking a prototype of the sunglasses to
Buffalo's Delaware Park and testing them out on random park goers.
"Dr.
Titus and I built a significant amount of 'brains' into our patented
glare sensor," says Mullin, an expert in optics, electronics, and
plastics. "Our microcontroller does not need to work very hard to
perceive and fight glare."
The
glasses' lenses are actually liquid crystal display (LCD) screens,
capable of creating dark spots that specifically target glaring light.
A
pinhole camera in the bridge of the glasses takes a picture of the
frame's line of vision. The camera itself analyzes the image and scans
it for glare that exceeds a certain threshold.
The
camera then alerts an adjacent microcontroller, which directs the LCD
to send extra pixels of shade to that portion of the lens, displaying a
four- to six-millimeter gray square in front of the eye.
The
square moves with the wearer to block the source of glare at any angle
but still allows the surroundings to remain visible. If the sun moves,
then so does the LCD spot.
This whole process takes about 50 milliseconds.
Mullin
says he couldn't have advanced this technology without UB's help. He
first needed to secure a patent for the technology used to create the
glasses. In 2003, he began working with UB's Office of Science,
Technology Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR), which acquired the
patent Mullin needed from Lockheed Martin and licensed it to Dynamic
Eye.
Mullin
was then put in touch with Titus by UB's Center for Industrial
Effectiveness (TCIE), which partners local businesses with UB
engineering brainpower from any of seven departments from UB's School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences: Biomedical Engineering; Chemical and
Biological Engineering; Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering;
Computer Science and Engineering; Electrical Engineering; Industrial
and Systems Engineering; and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
"What
Chris was working on is exactly what I do," explains Titus, who is also
cochair of UB's Department of Biomedical Engineering.
UB
staff not only secured the patent for Mullin and connected him with
Titus, but also helped to fund their research. TCIE is the regional
administrator of the Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence
(SPIR)—a New York State program that supplies grants to technically
advanced companies employing fewer than 500 people.
TCIE
helped Mullin secure $36,393 in funding through SPIR grants—accounting for 42% of all research costs done while working with
TCIE. The collaboration between Mullen and Titus resulted in a new
patent application that was also licensed by STOR to Dynamic Eye.
Glasses
for glaucoma patients with sensitivity to light would certainly benefit
from Mullin's technology, as would a car's rearview mirrors and
windshield, to avoid being blinded by either bright headlights at night
or the sun.
"A few circuits, a little battery power and you can really fight the sun," says Mullin.
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