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Automated Charting of the Visual Space of Housefly Compound Eyes

Automated Charting of the Visual Space of Housefly Compound Eyes

Published on: March 31, 2022

Miniature curved artificial compound eyes.

Dario Floreano¹, Ramon Pericet-Camara, Stéphane Viollet

¹Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. dario.floreano@epfl.ch

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|May 22, 2013

Summary

Researchers developed a novel biomimetic compound eye, mimicking insect vision for panoramic motion perception. This artificial eye offers a wide, undistorted field of view with high temporal resolution and embedded processing.

Keywords:

Micro-opto-electromechanical systems bioinspired robotics optic flow sensor wide-angle vision

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Area of Science:

Biomimetics
Optoelectronics
Robotics

Background:

Compound eyes in nature offer wide fields of view and high temporal resolution, ideal for motion detection.
Engineering artificial compound eyes is challenging due to the need for precise optical and photoreceptor alignment on curved surfaces.

Purpose of the Study:

To present a unique design method for creating biomimetic compound eyes.
To develop a miniature, mechanically flexible artificial eye with a panoramic, undistorted field of view.

Main Methods:

A novel design method involving stacking three planar layers: a microlens array, a neuromorphic photodetector array, and a flexible printed circuit board.
These layers are then stacked, cut, and curved to form a flexible imager.

Main Results:

Prototyped and characterized an artificial compound eye with a hemispherical field of view.
The artificial eye demonstrates embedded, programmable low-power signal processing, high temporal resolution, and local adaptation to illumination, similar to arthropod eyes.

Conclusions:

The developed design method enables the creation of mechanically flexible, biomimetic compound eyes.
This technology has potential applications in autonomous navigation systems and insect vision research.