Modeling and simulations on retina-like sensors based on curved surface

Abstract

A space-variant lens array on a curved surface (SVLACS) with a large field of view is proposed to decrease the size and improve the performance of a space-variant lens array on a plane (SVLAP). The whole mathematical models are developed and tested, and comparative simulations between SVLACS and SVLAP are carried out. Under the identical simulated situations, the radius of SVLACS decreases to 58% of SVLAP. Meanwhile, the performance of optical information loss rate is improved from 0.22 to 0.08. The results are beneficial for designing a retina-like image sensor based on SVLACS.

Compound eye and retina-like combination sensor with a large field of view based on a space-variant curved micro lens array

“…To realize the retina-like feature of the single aperture eye, the segmentation of the imaging plane should meet the LPT, i.e., the position distribution of the pixels on the image sensor has a geometric growth of adjacent rings [19,26]. Suppose that the space-variant CMLA has N rings, M sectors in each ring, and the blind radius on the imaging plane is r 0 .…”

“…The definition of optical information loss rate can be expressed as the ratio of the ineffective sampling area to the effective sampling area on the object plane [19]. Due to the existence of the FOV gaps of the space-variant CMLA on the object plane, shown as the black area in Fig.…”

“…Because the space-variant CMLA is placed on the curved surface, the sampling area of a single micro lens on an object plane approximately is an ellipse [19], shown as the pink or the green area in Fig. 3.…”

“…One of its remarkable merits is a retina-like feature that has space-variant resolution resulting from a nonuniform distribution of the photoreceptor cells in the retina. Because of the retina-like structure, the relationship between the retina and visual cortex submits to an approximate logarithmic-polar transformation (LPT) [18,19], which is beneficial for reducing redundant compression and improving the image efficiency of object detection and recognition [20][21][22][23]. To the best of our knowledge, there have been quite a few previous studies on both the compound eye and the single aperture eye [11,22].…”

Design and modeling of three-dimensional laser imaging system based on streak tube

“…Recently, our team presented a log-polar 3D laser imaging system based on the scanning principle in [28]. We have also presented a log-polar 3D laser imaging system based on the non-scanning principle in [7,29]. In this paper, a new nonscanning streak tube laser imaging system that belongs to a kind of MS-STIL is presented.…”