Catadioptric planar compound eye for full scene imaging with large field of view

The planar compound eye has the advantages of a simple structure and no need for a complex relay optical element, but the field of view (FOV) is narrow, which is a limitation of the development of the planar compound eye. For breaking the limitation, a catadioptric planar compound eye with a large FOV is proposed in this article. This design captures more light in the edge part by reflection and light in the center part by refraction. Two rotationally symmetric mirrors are designed and processed by 3D printing. The experiments show that the FOV of the proposed prototype can reach 107°, which is larger than 90.7° obtained in previous work. In addition, images of the central FOV, which are unobtainable in previous work, have also been captured effectively. The proposed planar compound eye has great potential in virtual reality and detection since the FOV has been widened significantly.