Stereoscopic artificial compound eyes for spatiotemporal perception in three-dimensional space

Abstract

Arthropods’ eyes are effective biological vision systems for object tracking and wide field of view because of their structural uniqueness; however, unlike mammalian eyes, they can hardly acquire the depth information of a static object because of their monocular cues. Therefore, most arthropods rely on motion parallax to track the object in three-dimensional (3D) space. Uniquely, the praying mantis (Mantodea) uses both compound structured eyes and a form of stereopsis and is capable of achieving object recognition in 3D space. Here, by mimicking the vision system of the praying mantis using stereoscopically coupled artificial compound eyes, we demonstrated spatiotemporal object sensing and tracking in 3D space with a wide field of view. Furthermore, to achieve a fast response with minimal latency, data storage/transportation, and power consumption, we processed the visual information at the edge of the system using a synaptic device and a federated split learning algorithm. The designed and fabricated stereoscopic artificial compound eye provides energy-efficient and accurate spatiotemporal object sensing and optical flow tracking. It exhibits a root mean square error of 0.3 centimeter, consuming only approximately 4 millijoules for sensing and tracking. These results are more than 400 times lower than conventional complementary metal-oxide semiconductor–based imaging systems. Our biomimetic imager shows the potential of integrating nature’s unique design using hardware and software codesigned technology toward capabilities of edge computing and sensing.