Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS), also known as drones, are
aircraft either controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or increasingly,
autonomously following a pre-programmed mission. The use of drones has grown
quickly in recent years because unlike manned aircraft they can stay aloft for
many hours like “Zephyr” a British drone under development has just broken the
world record by flying for over 82 hours nonstop. They are much cheaper than
military aircraft and they are flown remotely so there is no danger to the
flight crew.
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| Next-Gen Micro Drones with Artificial Compound Insects Eyes |
As the camera systems are usually made to work like our
eyeballs do thus roboticists are now working on the development of their own
versions of compound eyes, which in many ways outstrip the human eyeballs.
A group of researchers from EPFL in Switzerland has exposed
a new artificial compound insect eye. The designed eye is unique because it
offers a huge insect-like field of view, very fast performance under all sorts
of lighting conditions. It’s mechanically flexible, and so at just 1 mm thin,
you can bend it into different shapes. Both the real and artificial eyes offer
a horizontal field of view of 180 degrees, and they consist of a similar number
of pixels.
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| Next-Gen Micro Drones with Artificial Compound Insects Eyes |
The advantage of the artificial eye is that it is faster,
operating at up to 300 hertz, while a fruit fly only updates at 100 hertz.
These aren't the cameras for taking pictures; they’re amazing at sensing
movement, or sensing changes in the intensity of light generated by motion. It
works indoors, outdoors, in bright sun, and in shade.
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| Structure of Artificial Eye-balls |
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| Structure of Camera |
Moreover it has no trouble adapting to rapid transitions
between any of these states, which is something that conventional cameras are crummy
at. These sensors can bring an array of advantages to robotics, especially to
the development of lightweight aerial platforms.
As the military drone manufacturers are also looking for civilian uses
for remote sensing drones to expand their markets and this includes the use of
drones for domestic surveillance therefore drones will no doubt make possible the
dramatic expansion of the surveillance state. With the convergence of other
technologies it may even make possible machine recognition of faces, behaviors,
and the monitoring of individual conversations. The sky, so to speak, is the
limit.
via-IEEE Spectrum
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