Aug. 14 – The world’s first artificial eyes are the result of a project coordinated by the Italian Dario Floreano, director of the Intelligent System Lab at Losanne’s Polytechnic Institute. Among the pioneers of evolutionary robotics, Floreano was head coordinator the “Curvace” project, for which a team of European researchers came together to study the functioning modalities of insects’ eyes. They built the first set of perfectly functioning miniature eyes. Financed by the EU for over €2 million, the project carried out research for the development of insect eyes with great potential in mobile robotics, from gearwear to medical applications. In the future, these eyes could be used in sectors in which motion detection is crucial. The results are the fruit of a collaboration among the Losanne Institute, the University of Aix-Marseilles and the CNRS (both in France), the Frauenhofer Institute of applied opticx and precision engineering and Tübingen University, both in Germany. These institutions worked together for 45 months, from October 2009 to June 2013, with €2.73 million in funds, of which €2.09 million from the EU funded program “Emerging and Future Technologies.” The open program, part of “Scientific Excellences” within the Horizon 2020 research and innovation framework project of the EU, promotes innovative ideas through collaborative research in favor of pioneering sciences and technologies. The results were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the Usa (Pnas).
