
Camera inspired by insect vision hits 1920 frame/s
Researchers in South Korea have developed a high speed camera that can operate in low light based on the visual system of insects.
The camera developed by the team at KAIST can capture 1920 frame per second with high quality and is just 1mm thick.
While conventional high-speed cameras excel in capturing fast motion, their sensitivity decreases as frame rates increase because the time available to collect light is reduced. Instead, the design uses multiple optical channels and temporal summation. Unlike traditional monocular camera systems, the bio-inspired camera employs a compound-eye-like structure that allows for the parallel acquisition of frames from different time intervals.
Professors Ki-Hun Jeong (Department of Bio and Brain Engineering) and Min H. Kim (School of Computing) developed the bio-inspired camera by mimicking the visual structure of insect eyes. A high-sensitivity microlens array camera (HS-MAC) with a rolling shutter image sensor is simultaneously acquires multiple frames by channel division, and temporal summation is performed in parallel to provide the high speed and sensitivity even in a low-light environment.
During this process, light is accumulated over overlapping time periods for each frame, increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. The researchers demonstrated that their bio-inspired camera could capture objects up to 40 times dimmer than those detectable by conventional high-speed cameras.
The team also developed channel-splitting technique to significantly enhance the camera’s speed, achieving frame rates thousands of times faster than those supported by the image sensors used in packaging. A compressed image restoration algorithm was used to eliminate blur caused by frame integration and reconstruct sharp images.
The research team plans to extend this technology to develop advanced image processing algorithms for 3D imaging and super-resolution imaging, aiming for applications in biomedical imaging, mobile devices, and various other camera technologies.
doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ads3389
