SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Circle Optics has developed and patented ground-breaking technology that enables a next generation of 180° and 360° wide field of view (WFOV) image and data capture. Circle has a pre-existing prototype system (Hydra Alpha) and is completing a next generation system (Hydra Beta). The Hydra camera system resembles a compound-eye camera with numerous adjacent protruding lenses, but the opto-mechanical designs are different than those seen in either WFOV compound eye bio-inspired cameras or other panoramic imaging systems. In this system, images captured by a plurality of adjacent cameras, each imaging a polygonal shaped FOV with high resolution, low distortion, and minimal residual parallax, are mosaiced together to produce “perfect” WFOV or panoramic images in real time. Because of design control over parallax and the opto-mechanical mounting, the blind regions between adjacent cameras, and the use of compensating FOV overlap are minimized. Circle Optics has previously demonstrated its Hydra Alpha prototype in the entertainment and cinematography industry – a 360° x 300° (horizontal x vertical) FOV visible color camera system outputting 72-megapixel video. Circle Optics has also been developing a follow-on, system concept called Medusa that can provide ultra-high resolution hemispherical imaging. The Medusa FOV is nominally hemispheric, with each imaging channel having its objective lens coupled into an imaging relay system, although the total captured field of view can be customized to something smaller. The relay provides greater design freedom, including the use of large format image sensors for ultra-high resolution, the addition of an optical zoom, or the ability to simultaneously use multiple types of optically co-aligned sensors such as LIDAR, IR, visible, that can share the same FOV for multispectral / hyperspectral applications. For example, the Medusa approach can be developed to image a wide FOV, at high resolution (e.g., 360° H x 160° V FOV, 500+ MP, 75 FPS) for cinematic or VR imaging capture. With the addition of a dual sensing modality, such as LIDAR or event sensors, the Medusa configuration can also support a variety of applications including photogrammetry or mapping, security or surveillance, or object tracking, generating a RGBD data stream on the fly (Red, Green, Blue, Depth value for each pixel). Depending on the system configuration (Hydra or Medusa), the device geometry (e.g., icosahedral) and lens design, the image sensor, the per channel resolution can range from 20-500+ px/deg. Either of the Hydra or Medusa configurations can be adapted and optimized for simulation training applications.
