Spiders To Inspire A More Compact System Of Depth-Sensing Cameras

Gadgets and robots are becoming more and more common in our everyday life, which calls for them having a 3D vision. However, as you can see by the notch on the iPhones, the size of a depth-sensing camera is still too large. But that might not be the case any longer as scientists have found a way to reduce the bulkiness, inspired by how spiders can see their prey from a distance.

Spiders’ heads are too small to fit in a whole system of light projectors, and yet their hunting skills are excellent. The answer is pretty weird but handy for scientists.

We humans have two eyes to capture slightly different images and form a sense of distance from that, while each of the spider eyes is a depth-sensing system in its own right.

Each of these tiny crawling creature’s eye is made up of multiple layers and transparent retinas. So the images will have different levels of blurriness depending on the distance. The spiders' brains will process all of the information gathered by different eyes and layers to form an idea of the distance between the creature and the subject. The best thing about this system is that it requires a minimum amount of hardware.

The approach has helped researchers at Harvard University to create a system of lenses that can provide information on distance without the optical elements.

These lenses will capture images with different amounts of blurriness, like what spiders' eyes do, and an algorithm will analyze them to come up with a calculation of depth.

The whole process requires little hardware as well as power. The size of the entire thing can also be very compact. As in this experiment, the hardware is only 3 millimeters across.

The size of the system makes it ideal for adding in everything, from smartphones, smart home appliances, to self-driving cars.