7. Artificially Engineered Compound Eye Sensing Systems

Understanding of light sensing organs in biology creates opportunities for the development of novel optic systems that cannot be available with existing technologies. The insect’s eyes, i.e., compound eyes, are particularly notable for their exceptional interesting optical characteristics, such as wide fields of view (FOV) and nearly infinite depth of field. The construction of man-made sensing systems with these characteristics is of interest due to potential for applications in micro air vehicles (MVAs), security cameras, clinical endoscopes, and new approaches to navigation and sensing. Mimicking of such compound eyes has been evolving for the last few decades, which starts from simple fabrication of stand-alone microlens arrays (MLAs). Recent work has yielded significant progress in the realization of artificial compound eyes, including multiple lens arrays together with sensing pixel arrays with a hemispherical geometry. In this chapter, we discuss a complete set of materials, design layouts, integration schemes, and operating principles for sensing systems that mimic compound eyes. Certain concepts extend recent advances in flexible electronics that provide previously unavailable options in design.