A new ultra-thin camera has been developed that could quell the recurring “camera bump” controversy that emerges with every new smartphone release.

KAIST announced on the 7th that a joint research team led by Professor Jung Ki-hoon of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering and Professor Kim Min-hyuck of the School of Computing has developed a “wide-field biomimetic camera” that applies the visual principles of insects to achieve an extremely thin form factor and a wide field of view. The camera is only 0.94 mm thick—comparable to the thickness of a human hair—and is capable of ultra-wide-angle imaging of up to 140 degrees, exceeding the typical human field of view of about 120 degrees.

The research team focused on the visual structure of the parasitic insect Xenos peckii. Xenos peckii uses a unique method in which multiple eyes capture different parts of a scene and then synthesize them in the brain into a single high-resolution image. This is analogous to several people photographing different sections of a landscape with high-performance cameras and combining them into one giant panoramic photograph.

The camera is expected to see broad application in various fields that require ultra-small, high-performance imaging systems, including medical endoscopes, micro-robots, and mobile devices.

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