An artificial compound eye system for large field imaging

Abstract

With the rapid development of science and technology, optical imaging system has been widely used, and the performance requirements are getting higher and higher such as lighter weight, smaller size, larger field of view and more sensitive to the moving targets. With the advantages of large field of view, high agility and multi-channels, compound eye is more and more concerned by academia and industry. In this work, an artificial spherical compound eye imaging system is proposed, which is formed by several mini cameras to get a large field of view. By analyzing the relationship of the view field between every single camera and the whole system, the geometric arrangement of cameras is studied and the compound eye structure is designed. By using the precision machining technology, the system can be manufactured. To verify the performance of this system, experiments were carried out, where the compound eye was formed by seven mini cameras which were placed centripetally along a spherical surface so that each camera points in a different direction. Pictures taken by these cameras were mosaiced into a complete image with large field of view. The results of the experiments prove the validity of the design method and the fabrication technology. By increasing the number of the cameras, larger view field even panoramic imaging can be realized by using this artificial compound eye.