Patent ID: 8073547

Claim:
A guiding apparatus for cochlear implant, which provides information on an inserting route of a cochlear implant system, comprising: at least one optical tube configured to transmit an optical signal toward the interior of an ear; an optical signal emitting module, coupled to one end of the at least one optical tube, configured to convert an electrical signal into the optical signal and emit the optical signal through another end of the optical tube; an optical signal detecting module, coupled to one end of the optical tube, configured to receive an optical signal that is reflected by an obstacle or an inner wall of a cochlear through another end of the optical tube and convert the received optical signal into an electrical signal; a processor configured to i) provide a control signal to the optical signal emitting module and the optical signal detecting module and ii) analyze optical emission energy information of the emitted optical signal and optical detection energy information of the converted electrical signal so as to generate inserting route information for the cochlear implant system, wherein the inserting route information comprises at least one of route information of an inner wall of a cochlear canal and position information of the optical tube; a display configured to output the generated inserting route information; and an optical signal magnitude switch configured to receive a command to control the magnitude of an optical laser beam to be emitted from the optical signal emitting module and configured to remove the obstacle, wherein the processor, in accordance to the command, is configured to control the optical signal emitting module so as to change the magnitude of the optical laser beam.