Camera lens provides bug’s-eye view

BBC : In a paper published this week in Nature, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign describe a camera lens based on the compound eye of an insect. The prototype’s 180 small lenses are placed over photodetectors and stretchable electronics. That complex network is then shaped into a hemisphere and the individual signals stitched together with computer software to give a 160-degree view. The device reportedly has remarkable wide-angle capability and depth of view. The researchers envision a number of uses for such a lens, such as in surveillance devices or endoscopy tools.