Compact single-shot metalens depth sensors inspired by eyes of jumping spiders

Qi Guo, Zhujun Shi*, Yao Wei Huang, Emma Alexander, Cheng Wei Qiu, Federico Capasso, Todd Zickler

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

136 Scopus citations

Abstract

Jumping spiders (Salticidae) rely on accurate depth perception for predation and navigation. They accomplish depth perception, despite their tiny brains, by using specialized optics. Each principal eye includes a multitiered retina that simultaneously receives multiple images with different amounts of defocus, and from these images, distance is decoded with relatively little computation. We introduce a compact depth sensor that is inspired by the jumping spider. It combines metalens optics, which modifies the phase of incident light at a subwavelength scale, with efficient computations to measure depth from image defocus. Instead of using a multitiered retina to transduce multiple simultaneous images, the sensor uses a metalens to split the light that passes through an aperture and concurrently form 2 differently defocused images at distinct regions of a single planar photosensor. We demonstrate a system that deploys a 3-mm-diameter metalens to measure depth over a 10-cm distance range, using fewer than 700 floating point operations per output pixel. Compared with previous passive depth sensors, our metalens depth sensor is compact, single-shot, and requires a small amount of computation. This integration of nanophotonics and efficient computation brings artificial depth sensing closer to being feasible on millimeter-scale, microwatts platforms such as microrobots and microsensor networks.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)22959-22965
Number of pages7
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume116
Issue number46
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 12 2019

Funding

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This project was supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Grants FA9550-14-1-0389 and FA9550-16-1-0156; and NSF Award IIS-1718012. Y.-W.H. and C.-W.Q. are supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister\u2019s Office, Singapore under Competitive Research Program Award NRF-CRP15-2015-03. E.A. is supported by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship DGE1144152. Metalens fabrication was performed at Harvard\u2019s Center for Nanoscale Systems, supported by NSF Grant 1541959. Q.G. and Z.S. thank Mohammadreza Khorasaninejad for helpful discussions. Z.S. thanks Zhehao Dai for helpful comments and discussions. This project was supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Grants FA9550-14-1-0389 and FA9550-16-1-0156; and NSF Award IIS-1718012. Y.-W.H. and C.-W.Q. are supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister?s Office, Singapore under Competitive Research Program Award NRF-CRP15-2015-03. E.A. is supported by NSF Graduate Research Fellowship DGE1144152. Metalens fabrication was performed at Harvard?s Center for Nanoscale Systems, supported by NSF Grant 1541959. Q.G. and Z.S. thank Mohammadreza Khorasaninejad for helpful discussions. Z.S. thanks Zhehao Dai for helpful comments and discussions.

Keywords

  • Depth sensor
  • Jumping spider
  • Metalens

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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