A Bionic Camera Inspired by Insects
Bionic Camera Inspired by Insects Every insect eye consists of lots of small units called facets. Each facet is comprised of lens, pigment, and photoreceptors. The lens is mounted on a transparent crystalline cone that allows the light to reach the photoreceptors. Black pigment isolates facets from each other and screens out background light. The hemispherical shape allows extremely wide-angle fields of view, and the other advantage of this design is that it has incredible depth of view, which keeps objects focused despite the distance from the camera. John Rogers, a physical chemist and materials engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and leader of the research, said “We think of the insect world as an inspiration for design, but we’re not constrained by it… It’s not bio-mimicry; it’s bio-inspiration.” In these artificial insect eyes the tiny lenses are located on top of columns based on a flexible membrane – all made from elastic pol...