Towards insect inspired visual sensors for robots

Flying insects display a repertoire of complex behaviours that are facilitated by their non-standard visual system that if understood would offer solutions for weight- and power- constrained robotic platforms such as micro unmanned aerial vehicles (MUAVs). Crucial to this goal is revealing the specific features of insect eyes that engineered solutions would benefit from possessing, however progress in exploration of the design space has been limited by challenges in accurately replicating insect vision. Here we propose that emerging ray-tracing technologies are ideally placed to realise the high-fidelity replication of the insect visual perspective in a rapid, modular and adaptive framework allowing development of technical specifications for a new class of bio-inspired sensor. A proof-of-principle insect eye renderer is shown and insights into research directions it affords discussed.