Rapid zooming liquid-compound-eye system for wide FOV imaging and multi-target focusing

Compound eye imaging systems with tunable focal lengths hold great promise for capturing moving objects across wide-angle views at varying working distances. However, existing systems suffer from a slow response time and lack the zoom capability required for detailed imaging. In this work, we present a liquid-compound-eye (LCE) imaging system that integrates the multi-aperture design of compound eyes with electrically tunable liquid lenses for rapid and adaptive optical zooming. The proposed LCE system supports 4 × continuous optical zoom, provides a maximum field of view (FOV) of 109°, and achieves a rapid zoom response time of 27 ms. Experimental validation demonstrates the system's ability to perform wide FOV imaging, fast zoom imaging, and simultaneous multi-target focusing. These features significantly enhance the perception and recognition performance of reconnaissance and search unmanned aerial vehicles. The proposed LCE system shows strong potential for advanced vision tasks such as real-time target tracking, panoramic surveillance, and dynamic scene understanding.