Eyes come in many shapes and forms—
from an owl’s eyes, which contains hundreds of
millions of light and color-sensing cells,
to the eyes of a zooplankton,
made up of just a few thousand.
Although more light-sensitive cells mean clearer vision,
it takes a lot of energy to process
this constant flood of information to the brain.
Not every animal has the resources to spare
on 20/20 eyesight.
Some insects, like blowflies, for example,
have more concentrated areas of sensitive
cells in the front of them than peripherally.
In order to get a clear view of their surroundings,
they move just their heads, which uses less
energy than moving their entire body.
This led researchers to wonder—
could incorporating movement into a vision system on robots
also save energy?
They started with a small, but powerful battery
and Bluetooth chip.
Next, they had to build their camera—
the challenging part was finding the right lens.
They ended up settling on using different
lenses depending on the situation—
one lens was better at capturing images closer to the camera,
while another could focus on distant
objects, like buildings.
Both of these lenses fed into the same lightweight
image sensor, which converted the light entering
from the lens to the image displayed on the smartphone.
The combination of all these parts weighed
only 248 milligrams, less than a pinch of salt.
Although the resulting video isn’t HD,
it is clear enough to distinctly see shapes and
forms in close to real-time.
But to make their vision truly expansive,
scientists rigged up a one-of-a-kind arm that could
move the camera similar to the way insects
move their heads.
They could control the arm from their phone
to move the camera up to 60°,
adding to the 30-40° field of vision from just the lens.
By stitching together images from the camera
at different positions, researchers could
construct panoramic views of an area.
To save even more energy, researchers built
an accelerometer onto the vision system,
a device that can detect motion.
When turned on, the camera only captured video
when the beetle was on the move.
For less-active beetles, this meant the camera
could operate for up to 6 hours.
When the system was mounted onto an insect-sized
robot, it saved the bot significant amounts
of energy, just like their live counterparts—
moving only the camera took up to 84 times less energy
than moving the entire robot.
To date, this is one of the smallest vision systems that
can power itself.
This camera will allow researchers to peer
into the habits of insects outside the lab,
especially because it can perform well in
darker environments, where many insects dwell.
And for future endeavors, researchers plan
to strap the camera on to flying insects,
like moths, and pare down the device so it
can be mounted on to even smaller bugs, like
flies and bumblebees.
Stay tuned for a live-action Bug’s Life in the coming years.