Bio-inspired spherical compound eye camera for simultaneous wide-band and large field of view imaging

Abstract

Natural compound eyes have excellent optical characteristics, namely large field of view, small size, no aberration, and sensitive to motion. Some arthropods have more powerful vision. For example, the Morpho butterfly’s compound eyes can perceive the near-infrared and ultraviolet light that the human eye cannot see. This wide-band imaging with a large field of view has great potential in wide-area surveillance, all-weather panoramic imaging, and medical imaging. Hence, a wide-band spherical compound eye camera inspired by the Morpho butterfly’s eye was proposed. The wide-band spherical compound eye camera which can achieve a large field of view (360° × 171°) imaging over a wide range of wavelengths from 400nm to 1000nm, mainly consists of three parts: a wide-band spherical compound eye with 234 sub-eyes for light collection, a wide-band optical relay system for light transmission, and a wide-band CMOS image sensor for photoelectric conversion. Our experimental results show that the wide-band spherical compound eye camera not only captures a large field of view without anomalous blurring or aberrations but also perceives near-infrared light that is not recognized by the human eye. These features make it possible for distortion-free panoramic vision and panoramic medical diagnosis.