Redesign and construction of an artificial compound eye visual sensor.

Abstract

During the design process of the biologically inspired degrees y eye sensor under development at the Wyoming Information, Signal Processing, and Robotics (WISPR) laboratory located at the University of Wyoming, a significant design challenge was encountered. Constructing a sensor required gluing 1 mm glass ball lenses to 1 mm fiber optic cables. This process is expensive and time consuming. An alternative was discovered using commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) photodiodes with premounted lenses. Using the COTS photodiodes made the construction of a sensor less expensive, faster, and more precise. With this new design method a two dimensional artificial compound eye was designed and implemented.