Krill-eye: Superposition Compound Eye for Wide-Angle Imaging via GRIN Lenses
Shinsaku Hiura, Ankit Mohan, Ramesh Raskar · IPSJ Transactions on Computer Vision and Applications · 2010
We propose a novel wide angle imaging system inspired by compound eyes of animals.Instead of using a single lens, well compensated for aberration, we used a number of simple lenses to form a compound eye which produces practically distortion-free, uniform images with angular variation.The images formed by the multiple lenses are superposed on a single surface for increased light efficiency.We use GRIN (gradient refractive index) lenses to create sharply focused images without the artifacts seen when using reflection based methods for X-ray astronomy.We show the theoretical constraints for forming a blur-free image on the image sensor, and derive a continuum between 1 : 1 flat optics for document scanners and curved sensors focused at infinity.Finally, we show a practical application of the proposed optics in a beacon to measure the relative rotation angle between the light source and the camera with ID information.