Bio-inspired Omnidirectional Array Sensors

The BioPOEMS (Bio-Polymer-Opto-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) group at UC Berkeley will investigate and develop the polymer optical materials and processing technology required to achieve a highly variable field-of-view (FOV) optical element on the microsystems using advanced MEMS.

The micro-scale adaptive optical elements proposed in our proposal directly mimic natural analogues such as the insect compound eyes and human eyes. The adaptive optics will provide capabilities such as wide-angle motion detection and tracking currently unavailable in standard optical systems. This effort provides a strong element of risk reduction to the team effort by addressing the program goals in micro-scale elements where MEMS actuation provides proven levels of control.

Novel devices are proposed for the omni-directional detection of incident radiant energy. These biomimetic systems have the capability of generating a high-resolution mosaic from the simultaneous detection of light from many sources. Four different approaches are presented in this proposal: Task 1 is the biomimetic adaptive optical system modeled after the compound eye frequently found in insects; Task 2 consists of a lens eye type based on a ball lens and a half-spherical detector; Task 3 consists of integrating GRIN on 2-D optical MEMS actuator; and Task 4 is the full integration of the biomimetic adaptive optical systems with the gradient index of refraction (GRIN) and deformable lens.