History
Founding Director of SonicVisionN is Emeritus Professor Leslie Kay, OBE PhD FRSNZ., He was the inventor in 1959 and early pioneer of today's commonly used INFORMATION CARRYING airborne ultrasonics.
The ULTRA SONIC TORCHTM 1965
Professor Kay first invented high energy, octave-wide,
frequency modulated, very high resolution ultrasonic sensing in air in 1959, when at the University of Birmingham. His first product was the Ultra Sonic TorchTM, used as a mobility aid for the Blind, and manufactured in 1965 by Ultra Electronics Ltd. For this work he was awarded the British "Scientific Achievement" award for 1965. The special transducers were later copied by POLAROID Inc for the Sonar Camera. This transducer technology is now widely used but only in a narrow band low energy form on robots.
The SONIC GLASSES (SonicguideTM) 1974
In 1965 Professor Kay invented the "sonic glasses", and at the
University of Canterbury developed the necessary small wide bandwidth, wide angle, ultrasonic transducers and the associated electronic processing system.The transducers fitted into spectacle frames forming a binaural spatial perception sensor. This enabled the Blind to "see with sound" for the first time in 1970. His second product was the SonicguideTM manufactured in 1974 by Womald Sensory Aids International Ltd. For this achievement he became the first engineer to be honoured with Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand
The TRISENSOR (KASPA
TM)
To increase the angular resolution of the binaural sensors being developed at Canterbury for use by Blind children, Professor Kay discovered a means for adding a third high resolution monaural sensor to the wide angle binaural sensing system being used. This then modelled the dual function of the eye - the foveal and the peripheral fields of view. The angular resolution increased by a factor of 6. The third product for the Blind was first produced in 1994. It is now manufactured by SonicVisioN Ltd.
