PROCEEDINGS ARTICLE | October 1, 2013
Proc. SPIE. 8842, Novel Optical Systems Design and Optimization XVI
KEYWORDS: Zemax, Eye, Microlens array, Imaging systems, Lenses, Cameras, Image sensors, Microlens, Modulation transfer functions, Multichannel imaging systems
There are two main types of imaging systems that exist in nature: the single aperture eye and the compound eye. Usually,
cameras and most of artificial imaging systems are similar to the single aperture eye. But compound lenses can be more
compact than single lenses. Our design is based on insect compound eyes, which also have a wide field of view (FOV).
With the rise of micro-optical techniques, fabricating compound lenses has become easier. The simplest form of a curved
microlens array is a parabolic surface. In this paper, we proposed a multi-channel imaging system, which combines the
principles of the insect compound eye and the human eye. The optical system enables the reduction of track length of the
imaging optics to achieve miniaturization. With the aid of optical engineering software ZEMAX, the multi-channel
structure is simulated by a curved microlens array, and we use a Hypergon lens as the main lens to simulate the human
eye, which can achieve the purpose of the wide FOV. With this architecture, each microlens of a microlens array
transmits a segment of the overall FOV. The partial images that are separately recorded in different channels are stitched
together to form the final image of the whole FOV by software processing. A 2.74 mm thin imaging system with 59
channels and 90° FOV is optimized using ZEMAX sequential ray tracing software on a 6.16 mm × 4.62 mm image
plane. Finally, we will discuss the simulation results of this system and compare it with the optical cluster eye system
and a mobile phone patent.
