Artificial Bee Eye Gives Insight Into Insects’ Visual World

Artificial Bee Eye Gives Insight Into Insects’ Visual World

  2:21:00 PM    Science Lover

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Despite their tiny brains, bees have remarkable navigation capabilities based on their vision. Now scientists have recreated a light-weight imaging system mimicking a honeybee's field of view, which could change the way we build mobile robots and small flying vehicles.

Bee eye view. (Credit: Image courtesy of Institute 
of Physics)

New research published Aug. 6 in IOP Publishing's Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, describes how the researchers from the Center of Excellence 'Cognitive Interaction Technology' at Bielefeld University, Germany, have built an artificial bee eye, complete with fully functional camera, to shed light on the insects' complex sensing, processing and navigational skills.

Consisting of a light-weight mirror-lens combination attached to a USB video camera, the artificial eye manages to achieve a field of vision comparable to that of a bee. In combining a curved reflective surface that is built into acrylic glass with lenses covering the frontal field, the bee eye camera has allowed the researchers to take unique images showing the world from an insect's viewpoint.

In the future, the researchers hope to include UV to fully reflect a bee's colour vision, which is important to honeybees for flower recognition and discrimination and also polarisation vision, which bees use for orientation. They also hope to incorporate models of the subsequent neural processing stages.

As the researchers write, "Despite the discussed limitations of our model of the spatial resolution of the honeybees compound eyes, we are confident that it is useful for many purposes, e.g. for the simulation of bee-like agents in virtual environments and, in combination with presented imaging system, for testing bee-inspired visual navigation strategies on mobile robots."

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Omni-Focus Video Camera to Revolutionize Industry: Automatic Real-Time Focus of Both Near and Far Field Images

Omni-Focus Video Camera to Revolutionize Industry: Automatic Real-Time Focus of Both Near and Far Field Images

  10:50:00 PM    Science Lover

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University of Toronto, a world-leading research university, announces a breakthrough development in video camera design. The Omni-focus Video Camera, based on an entirely new distance-mapping principle, delivers automatic real-time focus of both near and far field images, simultaneously, in high resolution. This unprecedented capability can be broadly applied in industry, including manufacturing, medicine, defense, security -- and for the consumer market.

The above figure illustrates the omni-focus 
video camera’s high pixel resolution. Although 
the two sewing needles were photographed 
approximately 1.2 meters apart, both are in 
sharp focus. Note the eye of the back needle,
is actually viewed through the eye of the front needle. 
(Credit: University of Toronto)

Inventor and principal investigator of the Omni-focus video camera, Professor Keigo Iizuka of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, explains that, "the intensity of a point source decays with the inverse square of the distance of propagation. This variation with distance has proven to be large enough to provide depth mapping with high resolution. What's more, by using two point sources at different locations, the distance of the object can be determined without the influence of its surface texture." This principle led Professor Iizuka to invent a novel distance-mapping camera, the Divergence-ratio Axi-vision Camera, abbreviated "Divcam," which is a key component of the new Omni-focus Video Camera.

The Omni-focus Video Camera is produced in collaboration with consulting investigator Dr. David Wilkes, president of Wilkes Associates, a Canadian high-tech product development company. It contains an array of color video cameras, each focused at a different distance, and an integrated Divcam. The Divcam maps distance information for every pixel in the scene in real time. A software-based pixel correspondence utility, using prior intellectual property invented by Dr. Wilkes, then uses the distance information to select individual pixels from the ensemble of outputs of the color video cameras, and generates the final "omni-focused" single-video image.

"The Omni-focus Video Camera's unique ability to achieve simultaneous focus of all of the objects in a scene, near or far, multiple or single, without the usual physical movement of the camera's optics, represents a true advancement that is further distinguished in terms of high-resolution, distance mapping, real-time operation, simplicity, compactness, lightweight portability and a projected low manufacturing cost," says Dr. Wilkes.

The camera is still in the research phase. But it's not difficult to imagine how far-reaching an impact the Omni-focus Video Camera could have on several industries. As for the future direction of his research, Professor Iizuka sees the following possibilities:

1. Application of the Omni-focus Video Camera to TV studio cameras. Consider the example of a musical concert being televised by a major network. Even though the singer is in sharp focus, band members in the background, are invariably out of focus. Conventional video cameras are unable to focus simultaneously on both the singer and band members in the background. The Omni-focus Video Camera removes this limitation to deliver higher-quality video images and improved quality of experience to potentially millions of TV viewers, worldwide.
2. Application of the Omni-focus Video Camera to medicine. Says Professor Iizuka, "I'd like to apply the principle of the Omni-focus Video Camera to the design of a laparoscope. It would help doctors at the operating table, if they can see the entire view without touching optics of the laparoscope, especially if dealing with a large lesion."

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