“I mean, I’m not happy at all. I haven’t been happy to this whole situation. No one in my family has either, but to say I’m surprised would be a lie,” Jackson Reffitt told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “New Day” Tuesday in reaction to his father’s sentence. “I mean, everything my dad did, he’s his own person. And his action has consequences. But I’m not happy at all.”
Guy Refitt, a recruiter for a right-wing militia known as the Three Percenters, was sentenced to serve more than seven years in prison, the longest insurrection-related sentence to date.
He had been convicted by a DC jury in March of five felonies — wanting to obstruct the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election, transporting guns into DC, carrying a handgun onto Capitol grounds, interfering with Capitol Police protecting the Upper West Terrace and obstructing justice by threatening his daughter and son, who had turned him into the FBI.
“I mean, realistically, this doesn’t have a matter of political opinion. What my father did is far from politics. This is completely off the rails violence. Whether it had a political motive at this point doesn’t matter. It’s more about what he does and who he did it for,” Jackson Reffitt told Keilar.
His father, Reffitt argued, was “used as a puppet” for Donald Trump, adding of the then-President: “It is disgusting to see that someone with … money and social power can just get away with manipulating thousands of people just for whatever reason, and have no outcome.”
During the trial, Capitol Police officers testified about battling Guy Reffitt outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and prosecutors called him a leader of the crowd. He also recorded a video on January 6 in which he made threatening comments about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
Anthony Albanese has been caught in a fresh parliamentary scandal after questions were raised about the legitimacy of his moves on the footy field.
The Prime Minister joined the Parliamentary Friends of Rugby League on Tuesday morning for their fourth annual State of Origin touch football match.
Just before half time in the clash against Queensland, Mr Albanese dived to plant the ball on the try line to give NSW the upper hand.
Sports Minister Anika Wells protested, claiming she had tagged Mr Albanese before he scored.
The referee ultimately gave Mr Albanese the benefit of the doubt, awarding NSW what would turn out to be the final try of the day.
The parliamentary Blues ended up taking home bragging rights, winning 3-1.
Asked about the dubious try later in the day, Ms Wells laughed off the controversy.
“I think we can all agree that the referee is going to be the next governor-general based on that decision and I think we can say ultimately, glory to Queensland,” she said.
On if the Prime Minister could be trusted given his shady moves on the footy field, Ms Wells left that question unanswered.
But she joked NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo should take the inquiry straight to the league’s commission as a “top priority”.
Speaking earlier, Mr Albanese took issue with former Wallaby turned Senator David Pocock joining the Queenslanders for the grudge match.
“I can report the greatest scandal since (Greg Inglis) playing for Queensland. David Pocock from the ACT pulling on a Queensland jumper,” Mr Albanese told Nine.
“They will stop at nothing.”
He also complained about former deputy prime minister and NSW MP Barnaby Joyce also donning the Queensland jersey.
“Barnaby has very short stints on the field. Even though he represents the NSW seat, he has a Maroons jersey on as well,” Mr Albanese said.
“Look, there should be an inquiry into some of these players and where they are playing for, I tell you.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker declared a state of emergency in Illinois on Monday to help respond to the monkeypox outbreak.
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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker declared a state of emergency in Illinois on Monday to help respond to the monkeypox outbreak.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzkerdeclared states of emergency in their states Monday due to monkeypox outbreaks.
“[Monkeypox] is a rare, but potentially serious disease that requires the full mobilization of all available public health resources to prevent the spread,” Pritzker said in a statement. “That’s why I am declaring a state of emergency to ensure smooth coordination between state agencies and all levels of government, thereby increasing our ability to prevent and treat the disease quickly.”
Declaring a state of emergency often helps with the logistics and coordination between departments working to respond to the emergency. In this case, it means devoting more resources to testing opportunities and vaccinations, including who can administer them, and accessing funds designated for emergencies.
The alert in California was issued to help the state health department amp up its vaccination, education and outreach efforts in response to the virus, Newsom said in a statement.
“California is working urgently across all levels of government to slow the spread of monkeypox, leveraging our robust testing, contact tracing and community partnerships strengthened during the pandemic to ensure that those most at risk are our focus for vaccines, treatment and outreach,” Newsom said.
He continued, “We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community fighting stigmatization.”
With these declarations, California and Illinois join New York in trying to address these outbreaks at the state level.
A total of 5,811 cases of monkeypox have been recorded nationwide, with 1,390 of those cases in New York, another 827 in California and 520 in Illinois.
So far, California has administered 25,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine, and received about 61,000 doses, Newsom said.
If you’re a long-standing Xenoblade series fan, then you’re probably used to hearing the same lines of dialogue over and over again, whether it’s post-battle, or when opening a chest or gathering items.
Xenoblade Chronicles has a few of these — who can forget “I’m really feeling it?” from Shulk, something we constantly abuse here at Nintendo Life when we’re covering Xenoblade news. And “Now it’s Reyn time” has also entered the pantheon of video game memes. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had even more, including a couple of lines — “Think you can take me?” and “Don’t forget me”—that were edited in a patch.
So what does Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the latest entry in the series, add to the hall of Xenoblade quotes? Well, here’s one you’ll be hearing a lot of.
Eunie, a Keves soldier and the team’s Medic Gunner, has one post-battle quip that we’ve certainly heard a fair amount of — especially this writer. Ina lovely, think British accent, Eunie — after ally Lanz says “That was over way too soon!” — declare “Hear that, Noah? Lanz wants something a bit meatier.” It’s like poetry. Except this is a JRPG where you fight a lot of battles, so you’re going to be hearing it pretty much constantly throughout your playtime.
The frequency of Eunie’s little quote has got fans reminiscing about their favorite Xenoblade quotes, even blending them together to create some memes for the ages.
Of course, Eunie isn’t the only character who has something to say. Sena, Agnus’s tiny little hammer-wielder, is a cheery, pleasant little kid who’s determined to let you know something about herself:
This one’s quite cute, honestly. Sena’s pretty small and she’s usually carrying around a huge weapon. She loves training and sparring. So she’s just trying to amp herself up a bit!
Going back to Lanz, if you keep him as one of the Defender classes, he’ll be trying to keep aggro off of the other party members. So you’ll be hearing plenty of this from him:
He’s also the MVP, but you were probably already thinking that.
The frequency of some of these quotes has been drawing a lot of attention from people playing the game, with some — including Xenoblade YouTuber Enel — thinking there should be more dialogue just to drown out some of the more-common quotes. Perhaps we’ll see a Xenoblade Chronicles 2-style patch in the future?
For now, we’ll have to bask in the frequency, glory, joy — whatever you want to call it — of JRPG battle and field quotes in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. You won’t be forgetting these any time soon.
In fact, for Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii, the developers had to cut out some battle dialogue. Did You Know Gaming? revealed this in a video published this weekend, where the channel also brought up changes to one particular cutscene involving protagonist Shulk.
If we were to pick our own Nintendo Life quote, it’s got to be “Hello there lovely people” hasn’t it? Anyway, if you’re a Xenoblade fan, share your favorite Xenoblade field and battle quotes with us in the comments!
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Lando Norris crossed the line at Sunday afternoon’s Hungarian Grand Prix in seventh, 62 seconds behind the Ferrari driven by Charles Leclerc in sixth place. And the downbeat McLaren driver admitted he had hoped for a little bit more in Sunday’s race after starting on the second row…
Norris qualified in fourth in Budapest – his joint-highest qualifying position of the year – after showing strong pace for much of the weekend. And after making a good start on the soft tyre, he maintained his position and held off the challenge of Lewis Hamilton in the opening laps.
However, after being passed by Hamilton and then Max Verstappen on Lap 11, Norris came into the pit lane for the medium tire and made his way back up the field, before running a lonely race on the hard tire for his final stint, finishing 62.2 s behind sixth-placed Leclerc – much to his irritation.
READ MORE: Hamilton says Mercedes have ‘potential to win’ after ‘pretty epic’ drive to second in Hungary
“We did [have a good performance] against the people we are racing really,” said Norris. “Just if you think of P4 as a grid position then you expect a little bit more on Sunday. And to end up 62 seconds behind just the next car ahead of me, it’s a big challenge to do anything more from that, so therefore our race was against Alpine and the cars behind me.
Norris could not keep Hamilton and Verstappen behind for long
“The first stint, I think I destroyed my tire after like six laps, and I was very worried, because we aimed [to pit on] Lap 20 or 25 or something.
“Our pace on the medium tire, and I think our pace when there weren’t any issues with tires and management, was strong. And stronger than Alpine today, which is good news and a good sign but yeah, we just seemed to destroy those tires a lot quicker than everybody else.
READ MORE: ‘We made all the right calls’ says Verstappen, as he pulls off spin-and-win in Hungary to extend lead to 80 points
“It didn’t really go to plan at all… So, that’s the only thing we have to really work on, but the middle stint was strong and the final stint was easy, I was just on my own and hoping for the race to end. Challenging but we did everything we could, and P7 I have to be happy with.”
Race ‘didn’t go to plan’ for Lando Norris, with P7 finish in Hungary
Speaking after the race, McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl said Norris’s seventh-place finish was the maximum they could have hoped for in Hungary, as he lauded the improvements made by his team over the last two races.
“Lando executed a clean race today to take that seventh place,” said Seidl. “With all six cars from the top three teams finishing the race, P7 was the best we could achieve today, and we did it. The upgrade we introduced at Paul Ricard and improved our understanding of here put us into position to be the fourth-fastest team, which is a great achievement.”
Former President Donald Trump on the eve of the Missouri primaries gave his much-coveted endorsement in the republican primary for Missouri’s open Senate seat, but there was some confusion about who had been selected.
“I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Full Endorsement!” Trump wrote in a statement Monday night.
And with that, Trump apparently rejected anyone in the field of 19 who is not named Eric. There are two leading candidates who share the first name: Attorney General Eric Schmitt and former Attorney General Eric Greitensand one candidate trailing them.
The semi-endorsement came as Schmitt has broken ahead in recent polls, including one by Emerson College released in late July where he led Rep. Vicky Hartzler by 12 points. Greitens was third in that poll.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a ‘Save America’ rally in support of Arizona GOP candidates on July 22, 2022 in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Arizona’s primary election will take place August 2.
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Greitens, a controversial candidate who resigned in 2018 after a sex scandal and misuse of campaign funds, has been dropping in the polls since June after more than $11 million has been spent on the airwaves by outside groups to keep him from winning the primary and potentially putting this state at play in November’s general election.
Earlier this year, Greitens’ ex-wife has also claimed he abused her and their son, allegations that the Greitens campaign has denied. Sheena Greitens repeated the allegations on Twitter on Monday.
Shortly after Trump’s statement, both Greitens and Schmitt claimed to have Trump’s full support.
“President Trump has looked at the candidates and all that’s at stake in this race, and he has given me his COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!” read a campaign fundraising email from Schmitt.
“Honored to have the support of President Trump! We will MAGA!” Greitens tweeted. Greitens also has ties to Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, and he tweeted a video of Guilfoyle backing him.
Making matters more complicated, there is a third Eric in the race: Eric McElroy. In a statement, Hartzler said “Congrats to Eric McElroy. He’s having a big night.”
Trump said in July that he explicitly would not endorse Hartzler.
Aaron Navarro
Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting.
You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license.
To measure vegetation in the wild, researchers set up a Microsoft HoloLens as a mixed-reality sensor to feed their application called VegSense.
A proof-of-concept study by Rice University graduate student Daniel Gorczynski and bioscientist Lydia Beaudrot shows VegSense could be a suitable alternative to traditional classical field measurements at a low cost.
Their study in Methods in Ecology and Evolution shows the hardware-software combination excels at quantifying relatively mature trees in the wild, which is one measure of a forest’s overall health.
Gorczynski came up with the idea to try HoloLens, commonly marketed as a productivity tool for manufacturing, health care, and education. He developed the open-source software for the device and notes that while the combination is less effective at picking up saplings and small branches, there’s ample room for improvement.
Gorczynski says he first encountered mixed-reality sensing while an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University and recognized its potential for biological studies. “It seemed sort of like a natural fit,” he says. Gorczynski brought the idea to Beaudrot in 2019 shortly after his arrival at Rice.
The combination of stock hardware and custom software costs far less than systems based on lidar (for “light detection and ranging”) most often used in three-dimensional field studies, says Gorczynski, who developed VegSense on a platform geared more toward 3D games and interactive experiences than hard science.
Field tests at Houston’s Memorial Park showed that at least for mature trees, the smaller solution is just as good. In their case study, VegSense easily detected 48 of 50 such trees in the target area, a circle about 30 feet in diameter that Gorczynski walked, looking up, down, and around to build the 3D database. (“Imagine an asterisk with a circle around it,” he says, describing the data-capture pattern.)
“For this study, we wanted to be really deliberate in trying to replicate more traditional understory vegetation structure measurements,” Gorczynski says. “We tried to get that level of detail.”
What he sees as he scans the environment is a holograph-like grid pattern that tracks the surfaces of vegetation. “What’s really cool about that is you can see what the scanner is picking up, but also the spots you missed,” Gorczynski says. “The idea is to get the mesh to cover as much of the vegetation as possible because that’s what gets you the best scan.”
“The results were so nice that Dan quickly wrote it up for publication,” Beaudrot says, noting that Gorczynski expanded his validation of the gear during a subsequent field trip to Tanzania, the focus of one of 15 tropical forests in a recent rainforest study by the group.
“This device can facilitate a lot of great ecological research, particularly because it’s so cost-effective,” she says. “Collecting vegetation information on the forest floor right now is really hard to do without a lot of manual labor, or a really expensive lidar system.”
“So this is a groundbreaking, cost-effective device,” Beaudrot says. “It’s not going to give you the same resolution data that lidar will, but this is just the first application. We hope making VegSense open-source to the ecological research community will spur all the potential ways it can be developed.”
Northrop Grumman, Conservation International, and Rice supported the research.
The Rabbitohs were left to rue missed opportunities in a golden point loss to Cronulla but they need to regroup quickly against the unpredictable Warriors outfit on Saturday.
With matches against heavyweights the Eels, Panthers, Cowboys and Roosters to come after this weekend’s assignment the Rabbitohs can’t afford to slip up against a team that took them to the wire in Magic Round.
The Rabbitohs led 26-6 at half-time in that match at Suncorp Stadium but clocked off to concede four tries in 15 minutes and almost let the victory slip away.
Finals are out of the question for the Warriors but they’ll happy to play spoiler to any contenders who dare take them lightly.
The Rundown
teamnews
Rabbitohs: Taane Milne returns from a finger injury in the centers, filling the hole left by Jed Cartwright (hamstring). Bench forward Tom Burgess (suspended) is out, replaced by Mark Nicholls. The other new face on the interchange is Blake Taaffe, who is recalled for his first game since Round 15. Kodi Nikorima is out.
Warriors: Euan Aitken has been moved from the back row to the centers in place of Adam Pompey who drops to the reserves. Five-eighth Chanel Harris-Tavita is out with a knee injury so Wayde Egan moves from hooker to the No.6 jersey and Freddy Lussick has been promoted to start in the No.9.
Aaron Pene (illness), Bayley Sironen (eye socket) and Jack Murchie (parental leave) all return in the pack. Josh Curran goes to the bench and Jazz Tevaga drops out with a shoulder injury. Taniela Otukolo will play his first game since round 13 on the bench.
key match-up
Lachlan Ilias v Shaun Johnson: The young Rabbitohs playmaker has bounced back strongly from a tough outing against the Dragons in Round 15, coming up with some big plays as Souths have won four of five since that night. Ilias has come up with 13 forced dropouts and nine try assists so far in 2022 and he looks ready to handle the heat in the final month of the season as the Rabbitohs look to climb into the top four. Johnson’s kicking game has delivered 19 forced dropouts for the Warriors and the veteran will look to finish the year strongly and get some momentum to carry into 2023.
Stat Attack
Rabbitohs winger Alex Johnston leads the competition in tries (22) and line breaks (27). The Warriors’ top tryscorer is Dallin Watene-Zelezniak with seven while Reece Walsh is their best line breaker with eight.
White House issues image of Biden being briefed ahead of strike on Zawahiri
The White House has issued an image of President Joe Biden being briefed about the drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In a tweet describing the image, the White House said:
On July 1, President Biden meets with his national security team to discuss the counterterrorism operation to take out Zawahiri. At this meeting, the President was briefed on the proposed operation and shown a model of the safe house where Zawahiri was hiding.
On July 1, President Biden meets with his national security team to discuss the counterterrorism operation to take out Ayman al-Zawahiri. At this meeting, the President was briefed on the proposed operation and shown a model of the safe house where Al-Zawahiri was hiding. pic.twitter.com/W0A0mDk9Lr
The US drone strike that killed al-Zawahiri was cheered by someone who knows a bit about hunting al-Qaida leaders: Barack Obama.
The former American president who approved the 2011 special forces raid into Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden tweeted in approval of the bombing that killed al-Zawahiri, which was carried out on the orders of Joe Bidenwho served as his vice president:
More than 20 years after 9/11, one of the masterminds of that terrorist attack and Osama bin Laden’s successor as the leader of al-Qaeda – Ayman al-Zawahiri – has finally been brought to justice.
It’s a tribute to President Biden’s leadership, to the members of the intelligence community who have been working for decades for this moment, and to the counterterrorism professionals who were able to take al-Zawahiri out without a single civilian casualty.
Tonight’s news is also proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan. And I hope it provides a small measure of peace to the 9/11 families and everyone else who has suffered at the hands of al-Qaeda.
In an appearance on CNN, the White House’s national security spokesman John Kirby said the United States has confirmed al-Zawahiri’s death visually, but doesn’t have access to his DNA.
“We have visual confirmation, but we also have confirmation through other sources,” Kirby said in the interview, according to Reuters. “We do not have DNA confirmation. We’re not going to get that confirmation. Quite frankly, based on based on multiple sources and methods that we’ve gathered information from, we don’t need it”.
Congressional lawmakers go on lots of trips, but few attract the attention of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
A sign of that: the US air force jet thought to be carrying her to Taipei is the most popular plane being watched on flight tracking website Flightradar 24. Follow along here.
Foreign cyber attack takes out Taiwan government website
With US House speaker Nancy Pelosi said to beon her way to the island, Reuters reports a cyber attack from abroad hit the website of the Taiwanese presidency on Tuesday, leading to it briefly “malfunctioning”.
Though a source said the website has since been brought back online, as of the time of this post, its English-language page still appears to be down.
Reuters also reports that a US air force plane which could be carrying Pelosi to Taipei left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia earlier in the day and headed east before turning north towards the Philippines – a route that avoids South China Sea, where China has sought to press a number of contentious territorial claims.
Nearly a year after the US military’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri’s killing raises questions about the involvement of Taliban leaders in sheltering a mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and one of America’s most-wanted fugitives, Rahim Faiez and Munir Ahmed write for the Associated Press.
The Taliban initially sought to describe the strike as America violating the Doha deal, which also includes a Taliban pledge not to shelter those seeking to attack the United States — something al-Zawahiri had done for years in internet videos and online screeds. The Taliban have yet to say who was killed in the strike.
“The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri has raised many questions,” said one Pakistani intelligence official, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. “The Taliban were aware of his presence in Kabul, and if they were not aware of it, they need to explain their position of him.”
The house where Zawahiri stayed was the home of a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior US intelligence official. The AP says that Taliban officials blocked their journalists in Kabul from reaching the damaged house on Tuesday.
White House issues image of Biden being briefed ahead of strike on Zawahiri
The White House has issued an image of President Joe Biden being briefed about the drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In a tweet describing the image, the White House said:
On July 1, President Biden meets with his national security team to discuss the counterterrorism operation to take out Zawahiri. At this meeting, the President was briefed on the proposed operation and shown a model of the safe house where Zawahiri was hiding.
On July 1, President Biden meets with his national security team to discuss the counterterrorism operation to take out Ayman al-Zawahiri. At this meeting, the President was briefed on the proposed operation and shown a model of the safe house where Al-Zawahiri was hiding. pic.twitter.com/W0A0mDk9Lr
Israel’s prime minister says ‘world a safer place’ after al-Zawahiri death
The official social media accounts of the prime minister of Israel, Yair Lapidare carrying the following statement:
The world is a safer place today. I congratulate President Joe Biden and all who took part in the successful American operation targeting Ayman al-Zawahiri. Terrorist groups and their sponsors must know: You’re living on borrowed time. The forces of freedom will bring you to justice.
PM Lapid: The world is a safer place today. I congratulate @POTUS and all who took part in the successful American operation targeting Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Terrorist groups & their sponsors must know: You’re living on borrowed time. The forces of freedom will bring you to justice
Salamn Masood, Pakistan correspondent for the New York Times, has tweeted that it is his understanding the US did not ask for cooperation from Pakistan on the attack on Ayman al-Zawahiri, nor did the US use Pakistan’s airspace to launch the strike.
Breaking — Senior Pakistani security officials say Americans did not ask for and neither did they require intel cooperation in the drone strike that killed Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
Officials also say Pakistani airspace was not used for the drone flight.
Amy Cheng of the Washington Post has gathered some of the bipartisan support that has followed the announcement of the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri. She writes:
Senate Majority Leader, charles schumercalled the mission “a major accomplishment” for Biden that brought justice to one of the people “who helped orchestrate the cold-blooded murder of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers on 9/11.”
Senator Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, similarly credited Biden for approving the drone operation, saying “the world is a better, safer place” without Zawahiri. But McConnell urged the administration to come up with a comprehensive security plan in Afghanistan in light of the fact that Zawahiri appeared to have been living in central Kabul.
Rep Ilhan Omarone of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, wrote on social media that Zawahiri was “a monster responsible for the deaths of thousands around the world”.
Away from the death of al-Zawahiri, US president, Joe Bidenwill name top officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to serve as White House coordinators to combat the monkeypox outbreak.
Associated Press reports that, later today, Biden will announce Robert Fentonwho helped lead Fema’s mass Covid-19 vaccination effort, as the White House coordinator. Dr Demetre Daskalakis of the CDC will be named his deputy. Daskalakis, director of the agency’s HIV prevention division and a national expert on issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community, previously helped lead New York City’s Covid-19 response.
The White House said the pair would coordinate “strategy and operations to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments”.
The researchers develop an amphibious artificial vision system with a panoramic field-of-view based on the Fiddler crab’s eye structure
GWANGJU, South Korea, Aug 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Artificial vision systems are implemented in motion sensing, object detection, and self-driving vehicles. However, they are not suitable for changing external environments and are limited to a hemispherical field-of-view (FOV). Addressing this issue, researchers from GIST have now developed a novel artificial vision with 360° FOV that can image both terrestrial and aquatic environments. The system, modeled after the eye structure of the fiddler crab, could help realize the all-weather vision and panoramic object detection.
Researchers from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea have developed, in a new study, an artificial vision system modeled after the fiddler crab eye structure, which is suitable for both land and underwater environments, and provides a panoramic imaging ability.
Artificial vision systems find a wide range of applications, including self-driving cars, object detection, crop monitoring, and smart cameras. Such vision is often inspired by the vision of biological organisms. For instance, human and insect vision have inspired terrestrial artificial vision, while fish eyes have led to aquatic artificial vision. While the progress is remarkable, current artificial visions suffer from some limitations: they are not suitable for imaging both land and underwater environments, and are limited to a hemispherical (180°) field-of-view (FOV).
To overcome these issues, a group of researchers from Korea and USESincluding Professor Young Min Song from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, have now designed a novel artificial vision system with an omnidirectional imaging ability, which can work in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. Their study was made available online on July 12, 2022 and published in Nature Electronics on 11 July 2022.
“Research in bio-inspired vision often results in a novel development that did not exist before. This, in turn, enables a deeper understanding of nature and ensure that the developed imaging device is both structurally and functionally effective,” says Prof. Song, explaining his motivation behind the study.
The inspiration for the system came from the fiddler crab (uca arcuata), a semiterrestrial crab species with amphibious imaging ability and a 360° FOV. These remarkable features result from the ellipsoidal eye stalk of the fiddler crab’s compound eyes, enabling panoramic imaging, and flat corneas with a graded refractive index profile, allowing for amphibious imaging.
Accordingly, the researchers developed a vision system consisting of an array of flat micro-lenses with a graded refractive index profile that was integrated into a flexible comb-shaped silicon photodiode array and then mounted onto a spherical structure. The graded refractive index and the flat surface of the micro-lens were optimized to offset the defocusing effects due to changes in the external environment. Put simply, light rays traveling in different mediums (corresponding to different refractive indices) were made to focus at the same spot.
To test the capabilities of their system, the team performed optical simulations and imaging demonstrations in air and water. Amphibious imaging was performed by immersing the device halfway in water. To their delight, the images produced by the system were clear and free of distortions. The team further showed that the system had a panoramic visual field, 300either horizontally and 160either vertically, in both air and water. Additionally, the spherical mount was only 2 cm in diameter, making the system compact and portable.
“Our vision system could pave the way for 360° omnidirectional cameras with applications in virtual or augmented reality or an all-weather vision for autonomous vehicles,” speculates Prof. Song excitedly.
And it might be soon!
Reference
Title of original paper: An amphibious artificial vision system with a panoramic visual field
Journal: Nature Electronics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00789-9 *Corresponding authors’ emails: [email protected] and [email protected]
About the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST)
website: http://www.gist.ac.kr/
Contact: seulhye kim 82 62 715 6253 [email protected]
SOURCE Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
