Artificial compound eye inspired by imaging principle of Xenos peckii

Abstract

This work reports an artificial compound eye inspired by the imaging principle of Xenos peckii, which is an endoparasite of paper wasps. The unique eye design exhibits higher spatial resolution and better sensitivity than conventional compound eyes. The biomimetic compound eye comprises three layers, a microprism arrays, a microlens arrays and an aperture arrays. All of the layers were formed on a planar substrate, the device can be directly integrated with a commercial image sensor. Each channel detects a different part of the whole scene, and the partial images are stitched in the following image processing step. The proposed artificial compound eye can create great opportunities for applications in medical, industrial and military fields.