Motion detection based on 3D-printed compound eyes

Abstract

A biologically inspired compound eye system is fabricated for the detection of object motion without the need for sophisticated image processing. The array of the artificial optical unit, called ommatidium, structurally and functionally mimics the natural compound eyes for motion detection. Each artificial ommatidium consists of polymer lenses, a light-guiding polymer cone, a 3D printing cladding, and a light intensity sensor to measure the change of light intensity during motion detection. To simplify the signal processing and improve the system reliability, low-cost light sensors, instead of CMOS/CCD arrays, are used for measuring the light intensity changes caused by object movement. The distance and speed of a moving metal ball of a pendulum were measured using the compound eye system. The measured results agree well with the theoretical analyses. The error between the measured and calculated speed is less than 2%.

Transverse additive manufacturing and optical evaluation of miniature thin lenses in ultracompact micro multi-spherical compound eye

“…Their unique imaging mechanisms bring a lot of benefits for visual perception, such as highly effective performance, large FOV, rapid response and so on [3][4][5]. Inspired from their components, numerous artificial bionic compound eyes have been developed and widely used in pathological diagnosis [6], target tracking [7], intelligent camera [8][9][10][11][12], motion detection [13] and other significant fields. This indicates the rapid development of modern optics towards miniaturization, intelligence and integration.…”

Chalcogenide Glass IR Artificial Compound Eyes Based on Femtosecond Laser Microfabrication

“…Inspired by the nature compound eyes, many researchers began to imitate biology and create artificial compound eyes (ACE). [4] Many ACE devices have been reported, but most of them can only work in the visible wavelengths, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] which limits the application of ACE devices in the IR bands. Since infrared technology has the advantages of passive work, all day and less susceptible to interference and IR ACE can provide information that most of time cannot be accessed through visible one, it is of great significance to fabricate IR ACE imaging component applied in infrared bands.…”