An interdisciplinary team of researchers has created the
first digital cameras with designs that mimic those of ocular systems found in
dragonflies, bees, praying mantises and other insects. This class of technology
offers exceptionally wide-angle fields of view, with low aberrations, high
acuity to motion, and nearly infinite depth of field.
Taking cues from Mother Nature, the cameras exploit large
arrays of tiny focusing lenses and miniaturized detectors in hemispherical
layouts, just like eyes found in arthropods. The devices combine soft, rubbery
optics with high performance silicon electronics and detectors, using ideas
first established in research on skin and brain monitoring systems by John A.
Rogers, a Swanlund Chair Professor at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, and his collaborators.