New night vision camera can see through camouflage using cat-inspired technology

Thanks to Rocky IIIWe know that having the eye of the tiger can help you take down Mr. T, but the peepers of small felines, like house cats, could be the key to taking down even larger targets.

A team of engineers from several South Korean universities, led by Young Min Song, a professor emeritus at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, has taken inspiration from the optical systems of cats to develop a new type of camera that can capture images in the dark and see through camouflage. The technology could have wide-ranging applications, including in military drones.

Anyone who has ever seen a cat in a dark room knows the frightening effect their eyes can have in low light conditions. This effect is due to a structure called the tapetum lucidum, which reflects light. The retina is able to absorb the light that hits it directly, but also that which is reflected by the tapetum lucidum, which gives cats better night vision, and without the bulky glasses.

Small cats, like house cats, also have another strange eye feature common to small ambush predators: a vertical pupil, which gives them enhanced depth perception and the ability to filter out background visual clutter, allowing them to maintain high-definition focus on a single object they want to pounce on, such as a small animal, or your toes while you sleep. Both of these features are handy for seeing prey, even when it’s camouflaged.

To recreate these structures, Song and his colleagues fabricated a vertical camera aperture and combined it with a silicon photodetector array equipped with silver reflectors, simulating the two-pronged light absorption of the tapetum lucidum. As described in the study, published today in Scientific progressThe researchers tested their device by pointing it at a mouse-shaped object, concealed by a line pattern, from different distances. Sure enough, the lens was able to distinguish the shape of the mouse, despite the camouflage.

The cat-eye camera has some limitations, Song admitted in the study. Human-made image sensors aren’t yet as accurate as cats’, and one drawback of mimicking a cat’s slit pupils is a narrow field of view. But the engineers came up with a solution: Devices using their camera would have to mimic not only a cat’s visual system, but also the muscles in its head and shoulders, allowing for a more complete reproduction of feline movements.

Cats aren’t the only animals inspiring new camera concepts. As the engineers point out in the study, others have proposed, or even developed, lenses based on the biology of elephant fish, cuttlefish, and the incredibly complex eyes of the mantis shrimp. But according to the study, cat eyes show the most promise in dark conditions, which could have a wide range of applications.

“Our machine vision system has great potential to facilitate the deployment of mobile robots in a variety of unconventional robotic applications by replacing humans,” they wrote. “Representative examples include unmanned vehicles, surveillance robots, and military drones.”

So the next time you’re home after being laid off in favor of an automaton, and you hear the latest news story about an unmanned aircraft aiding in a war crime, you can turn to your laziest pet and offer a heartfelt thank you for making it all possible.