Scientists in Switzerland, Germany, and France have built the first fully-functional miniature curved artificial compound eyes based on the insect eye. The "CURVACE" project received €2 million in EU funding to develop the miniature "insect" eyes, which have high industrial potential in mobile robotics, smart clothing and medical applications.
As European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes stated: “Nature provides us with many extremely sophisticated solutions when it comes to solving problems. The research programmes financed by the EC give us the possibility to get inspired, understand, copy and recreate on an industrial scale some of the great things Mother Nature has brought us, so we can improve the lives of our fellow citizens.”
The compound eye features characteristics and functionality similar to the eye of the Drosophila fruit fly, and other arthropods. In particular, it is a small cylindrical object made up of 630 "basic eyes", called ommatidia. Each ommatidium is composed of a lens combined with an electronic pixel. These sensors have advanced optical properties, such as an undistorted panoramic field of view of 180°x60° and a large depth of field, and can to adapt to a wide variety of lighting conditions.
This artificial compound eye could be used in a variety of areas, as for example in automobiles for efficient obstacle detection. Due to their low thickness and flexibility, they could also be integrated in tissues to make smart clothes, such as smart hats with collision-alert systems for visually impaired people. Finally, flexible artificial compound eyes could be attached to the walls and furniture of intelligent homes for motion detection, as for example to prevent children’s accidents.