Jumping Spiders Inspire New Sensors

Harvard researchers have created a new depth sensor inspired by the eyes of a jumping spider. It could soon be in everything from microbotics to wearable devices. The tiny arachnids have incredible depth perception, which enables them to attack prey with great accuracy. Researchers from the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a device that combines a multifunctional, flat metalens with an algorithm to measure depth in a single shot.Current depth sensors rely on cameras or laser dots to measure and map depth. Humans have stereo vision, which means that we use information from both of our eyes to determine depth. Jumping spiders are much more efficient. If a jumping spider looks at a fruit fly with one of its principal eyes, the fly will appear sharper in one retina's image and blurrier in another. This change in blur tells the spider how far away the fly is.In computer vision, the calculation is referred to as depth from defocus, but until now, it has only been possible with large and slow cameras. The new metalens captures images and produces a depth map using a computer vision algorithm. The color on the depth map represents object distance. The closer and farther objects are colored red and blue, respectively.While this could lead to more powerful wearables and microbotics, let's hope that the new advances include robotic jumping spiders.