Bioinspired Zoom Compound Eyes Enable Variable-Focus Imaging

Cao, Jiaji; Hou, Zhi‐Shan; Tian, Zhen‐Nan; Hua, Jian‐Guan; Zhang, Yong‐Lai; Chen, Qi‐Dai

doi:10.1021/acsami.9b21008

Cited by 59 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The planar convex MLA fabricated by FLWE and soft lithography was integrated with a tunable optofluidic chamber, as shown in Figure 12d. [150] The diameter and sag height of the microlenses were ≈50 and 13 µm. The microlenses were close to each other, forming a dragonfly eye structure.…”

Section: Indirect Fabrication Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bioinspired Artificial Compound Eyes: Characteristic, Fabrication, and Application

Yang

Bian

et al. 2021

Adv Materials Technologies

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the visual nerve perception. This type of eyes has ultrahigh resolution, which can get clear image information. Inspired by this imaging system, people have put significant efforts over a long time for development of camera-related optical system for various applications, such as endoscope, digital camera, smartphones, robot eyes, visual implants. [7][8][9][10] Because of the rapid progress in micro/nano technologies, the artificial eyes structures can achieve extremely high resolution that is close to or even exceeding the human eye. However, the low field of view (FOV) (the maximum value is only 90°) hinders its wider applications. To solve this problem, multiple cameras need to be put together to work, which not only increases the cost, but also makes the entire optical system cumbersome. Hence, an optical device with portable, integrated, and large FOV features is highly desired.Different from the single-lens eyes, the insect eyes adopt another visual system. Figure 1b shows a honeybee's apposition compound eye, which has thousands of ommatidia arranged on a curved surface so that each ommatidium points in different directions. [11] Each unit consists of a lens, a crystalline cone, and a rhabdom. The focused light signal is transmitted to the photosensitive area by the crystalline cone, and then visual perception is generated after passing through the rhabdom. Each of the ommatidium can image which enables the insects to obtain sufficient information in a complex environment and exhibits the characteristics of large FOV, low aberration, and high sensitivity to moving objects. [12] In addition to the honeybee's compound eyes, the eyes of other insects in nature, such as mosquito eye, [13] fly's eye, [14] moth's eye, [15] and dragonfly's eye [16] also have similar structure and have attracted much attention due to the deep research on bionics. [4,9,12,[17][18][19][20][21] The characteristics of the compound eyes in nature and the advanced micro/nano-processing technologies provide great technical support and inspiration for the researchers to prepare artificial compound eyes (ACEs) with close-packed microlens arrays (MLAs) as optical imaging elements. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] Such MLAs compose of microscale lenses with the same surface feature and the regular arrangements are important microoptical components. The great light field (LF) regulation and focusing abilities of MLAs have made it essentially in various applications such as imaging, [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] dynamic target capture, [40][41][42] beaming homogenizing, [43][44][45][46] sensing, [47][48][49] light extractionThe natural compound eyes provide great inspiration for design of advanced imaging devices. Artificial compound eyes (ACEs) with close-packed microlens arrays (MLAs) have attracted enormous research interests due to their remarkable advantages in modern micro-optical systems, such as miniaturization, high integration, tunable focal length, large field of view, and moving objects tracking. Over a decade of intens...

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Section: Indirect Fabrication Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dynamic Target Capturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Bioinspired Artificial Compound Eyes: Characteristic, Fabrication, and Application

Yang

Bian

et al. 2021

Adv Materials Technologies

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“…17 Compared with single-aperture systems, small size, curvilinear layout, and a large number of ommatidium-like units synergistically compensate the limited FOV in each miniaturized vision unit. 18 Some artificial compound eyes have been studied in previous works [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] with small dimension. However, none of them would be feasible for near-field object detection, such as for this tactile sensing sensor.…”

Section: Design Fabrication and Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multidimensional Tactile Sensor with a Thin Compound Eye-Inspired Imaging System

Chen

Wang

2022

Soft Robotics

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Artificial tactile sensing for robots is a counterpart to the human sense of touch, serving as a feedback interface for sensing and interacting with the environment. A vision-based tactile sensor has emerged as a novel and advantageous branch of artificial tactile sensors. Compared with conventional tactile sensors, vision-based tactile sensors possess stronger potential thanks to acquiring multimodal contact information in much higher spatial resolution, although they typically suffer from bulky size and fabrication challenges. In this article, we report a thin vision-based tactile sensor that draws inspiration from natural compound eye structures and demonstrate its capability of sensing three-dimensional (3D) force. The sensor is composed of an array of vision units, an elastic touching interface, and a supporting structure with illumination. Experiments validated the sensor's advantages, including competitive spatial resolution of deformation as high as 1016 dpi on a 5 • 8 mm 2 sensing area, superior accuracy of 3D force measurement at levels of 0.018 N for tangential force and 0.213 N (0.108 N at the center region) for normal force, and real-time processing at 30 Hz, while achieving a thin size of 5 mm. We further demonstrate the sensor capability in sensing 3D force and slip occurrence in real grasping experiments. This device paves the way for robotic applications that require rich tactile information with miniaturized sensor structure.

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“…There are many animals and plants using unique micro-/nano-structures to improve their environmental adaptability ( Han et al, 2016 ; Han et al, 2020a ; Cao et al, 2020 ). For example, micro-/nano-structures on a lotus leaf and taro surface exhibit superhydrophobic properties ( Zhang et al, 2012b ; Wang et al, 2021b ; Lv et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro-/Nano-Structures Fabricated by Laser Technologies for Optoelectronic Devices

Zhou

Wei

et al. 2021

Front. Chem.

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Due to unique optical and electrical properties, micro-/nano-structures have become an essential part of optoelectronic devices. Here, we summarize the recent developments in micro-/nano-structures fabricated by laser technologies for optoelectronic devices. The fabrication of micro-/nano-structures by various laser technologies is reviewed. Micro-/nano-structures in optoelectronic devices for performance improvement are reviewed. In addition, typical optoelectronic devices with micro-nano structures are also summarized. Finally, the challenges and prospects are discussed.

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Bioinspired Zoom Compound Eyes Enable Variable-Focus Imaging

Cited by 59 publications

References 53 publications

Bioinspired Artificial Compound Eyes: Characteristic, Fabrication, and Application

Bioinspired Artificial Compound Eyes: Characteristic, Fabrication, and Application

Multidimensional Tactile Sensor with a Thin Compound Eye-Inspired Imaging System

Micro-/Nano-Structures Fabricated by Laser Technologies for Optoelectronic Devices

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