Researchers Build Digital Camera Inspired by Bug Eyes

Posted on May 2, 2013

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed digital camera technology that mimics the eyes of bugs, such as dragonflies, bees and praying mantises. A combination of electronics and elastic materials were used to build the visual sensor that resembles an insect's eye.

The cameras contain domed microlenses that combine to provide a 160 degree field of view. Each microlens produces a small image of an object. An individual detector responds only if a portion of the image formed by the associated microlens overlaps the active area. A CNN story says potential uses for the technology include high-resolution surveillance cameras and endoscopic cameras that could peer into the human body.

John A. Rogers, a Swanlund Chair Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said in a statement, "Full 180 degree fields of view with zero aberrations can only be accomplished with image sensors that adopt hemispherical layouts - much different than the planar CCD chips found in commercial cameras. When implemented with large arrays of microlenses, each of which couples to an individual photodiode, this type of hemispherical design provides unmatched field of view and other powerful capabilities in imaging. Nature has developed and refined these concepts over the course of billions of years of evolution."

The research was published here in Nature.

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