Taking inspiration from the visual system of the fly, we describe and characterize a monolithic analog VLSI sensor which produces control signals appropriate for the guidance of an autonomous robot to visually track a small moving target. This sensor is specifically designed to allow such tracking even from a moving imaging platform which experiences complex background optical flow patterns. Based on relative visual motion of the target and background, the computational model implemented by this sensor emphasizes any small-field motion which is inconsistent with the wide-field background motion.
C. M. Higgins and V. Pant, "A biomimetic VLSI sensor for visual tracking of small moving targets," IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, Vol. 51, No. 12, pp. 2384-2394, December 2004.