Miniaturization of Multi-Camera Systems

In this chapter, we present methods for creating and developing miniaturized high definition vision systems inspired by insect eyes. Our approach is based on modeling biological systems with off-the-shelf miniaturized cameras combined with digital circuit design for real-time image processing. We built a 5 mm radius hemispherical compound eye, imaging a 180∘× 180∘ field of view while providing more than 1.1 megapixels (emulated ommatidias) as real-time video with an inter-ommatidial angle Δϕ = 0. 5∘ at 18 mm radial distance. We made an FPGA implementation of the image processing system which is capable of generating 25 fps video with 1080 × 1080 pixel resolution at a 120 MHz processing clock frequency. When compared to similar size insect eye mimicking systems in literature, the system described in this chapter features 1000× resolution increase. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a compound eye with built-in illumination idea is reported. We are offering our miniaturized imaging system for endoscopic applications like colonoscopy or laparoscopic surgery where there is a need for large field of view high definition imagery. For that purpose we tested our system inside a human colon model. We also present the resulting images and videos from the human colon model in this chapter.