A compact bionic compound eye camera for imaging in a large field of view

Abstract

The traditional imaging technologies, such as two-dimensional imaging, have not been able to meet people's needs for higher technology. Inspired by the characteristics, such as small size, sensitivity to moving targets and large field of view, researchers began to study bionic compound eyes. In this paper, a hemispherical mounting surface with through holes to set the compound lens array is fabricated by 3-D printing technology. More than one hundred small lenses are mounted on the 3-D printed hemispherical surface to form a bionic curved compound eye, which is then integrated with an optical relay system and an CMOS imaging sensor to form a rather compact bionic compound eye camera. The addition of the optical relay system solves the problem that the mismatch between the curved focal plane formed by the curved compound eye and the flat focal plane of the CMOS imaging sensor. By employing this method, we design and analyze the curved lens array and optical relay system, and perform the related optical performance tests on the fabricated bionic curved compound eye imaging system. The results show that a good image quality can be achieved. The formed bionic compound eye imaging prototype system rather compact and has a weight of only 121 g, a volume of 34 mm × 44 mm × 80 mm, and a field of view of 120° × 120°. This system has great potential and value in military, medical, and engineering applications.