Artificial Compound Eye for Clear Vision in Harsh Environment

Artificial compound eyes (CEs) exhibit unique optical properties, including wide-angle vision, high light sensitivity, and enhanced motion detection, making them ideal for applications in drones, robots, and cameras. An easily fabricated, transparent, and self-cleaning superhydrophobic compound eyes are designed to achieve clear vision in harsh environments. The CEs demonstrated exceptional motion tracking and imaging capabilities. A crawling spider and a swinging object are captured by the CE with a wide field of view. A clear vision is demonstrated by imaging 3D-printed alphabetic letters through the CE in rainy and foggy environments. The superhydrophobic CE demonstrated fog resistance 6 times higher than a hydrophilic CE, and 14 times higher than a simple eye, and the projected image remains visible 3 times longer in heavy fog. A machine learning model is trained using 300 000 CE-produced images of five vowels in various fog densities, showing CE-produced images can better obtain information in a blurred situation. The superhydrophobic CEs are highly promising for applications in outdoor visualization, motion detection, and signal identification in adverse weather conditions.