Multiaperture Optical Systems

We will develop a multi-aperture compound eye, with embedded processing, that conforms to the shape of a warhead, UAV, or other robot nose or front-end. The compound eye architecture will be an "array of arrays" structure, with individual elements comprised of low-resolution vision chips having on-chip mixed-signal processing circuitry. The compound eye structure will also include multiple processor cores, embedded in the vision chips, to support a wide variety of image processing functions. The resulting compound eye will have a low mass and volume, will have a wide field of view, and will process images at a rate of hundreds or thousands of frames per second. The compound eye will be inexpensive to manufacture in large quantities.