Planar Emulation of Natural Compound Eyes

Ten different anatomical structures of compound eyes are provided by nature for arthropod vision. All the vision schemes are not well understood to be used for inspiration in engineering applications. This method demonstrates the planar emulation of the optical schemes and their functions for two representative types of the simple apposition and the reflecting superposition by using planar micro-optics. This new paradigm can discover nature's beautiful designs and also step up engineering bio-inspiration from natural compound eyes. Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers are published as ”Supporting Information”. Such documents are peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They are made available as submitted by the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.