In order to navigate and monitor real-wold environments, robots and machines should be able to collect images and dimensions under different background lighting conditions. In a bid to attain this, in recent years, engineers have been trying to develop increasingly advanced sensors. These sensors could be integrated within robots, surveillance systems, or other technologies that can gain from sensing their environment.
In a recent development, a team of researchers have developed a new sensor that can gather data in various lighting conditions. The sensor employs a mechanism that artificially performs the functioning of the retina in the human eye.
The bio-inspired sensor is fabricated using phototransistors composed of molybdenum disulphide. The findings of the research is presented in Nature Electronics.
In fact, the research on optoelectronic memory was initiated five years ago, stated one of the researchers who developed the sensor. The emerging device can produce history-dependent and light-dependent signals, which enables integration, weak signal accumulation, spectrum analysis, and other complicated image processing functions by integrating the multifunction of data storage, sensing, and data processing in a single device.
Earlier in 2018, the team of researchers published their first research on optoelectronic memories. The work led to the introduction of resistive switching memory device, which could perform photo-sensing as well as logic operations.
One year later, the team showcased a new optoelectronic resistive random-access memory device with three different capabilities. In particular, the new device could sense environment, sense information in its memory, and carry out neuromorphic visual pre-processing operations.
Later in 2020, the research team examined the concept of in-sensor and near-sensor computing paradigms and provided a perspective in this field. The new study is based on all previous efforts of the research team.
